Consumer Privacy
California court affirms win for Williams-Sonoma regarding gathering personal data at checkout
A California Court of Appeal recently affirmed a lower court ruling in favor of Williams-Sonoma in a case under the Song Beverly Credit Card Act of 1971 (the “Act”) challenging the store’s practice in soliciting consumer personal information at checkout.—Karl Belgum
The 2020 Census and your identity
Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau conducted an experiment with previously acquired census data to determine if the information people provide to the Bureau could threaten their privacy. The agency used this information, along with other publicly available records, and discovered that they were able to infer the identities of 52 million Americans.—Jenny L. Holmes
Cybersecurity
U.S. and U.K. officials say that Facebook’s privacy-focused vision for its messaging platforms will impede criminal investigations
Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg announced in a written note on Facebook’s website that the company would be shifting its platform’s focus toward a privacy-focused messaging and social networking service. As a part of this shift, Facebook is working to implement end-to-end encryption into its messaging platforms, which includes Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct.—Franz Wright
Data Breach
Kaspersky survey finds that internalizing data security measures can reduce costs dramatically
New research from Kaspersky has found that the cost of these breaches has risen to $1.41 million annually, up from $1.23 million in the previous year. An estimated 4,000 data breaches have already occurred during the first half of 2019, affecting over four billion users’ data.—Justin Smith
Health Care & HIPAA
Protecting Higher Education Institutions from HIPAA Risks
The NP Higher Education team discusses the potential implications of HIPAA on colleges and universities.—Laurie T. Cohen, Yelena F. Gray, Valerie Breslin Montague
Dental practice learns if you don’t have anything that is HIPAA compliant to Yelp don’t Yelp at all
On October 2, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced Elite Dental Associates - Dallas, P.C. (Elite) had agreed to pay $10,000 to OCR and adopt a corrective action plan to settle possible violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rules.—Jena M. Grady