PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

Profiling and the GDPR: An interview with Mark Singer and Raf Sanchez

I had the opportunity to interview Mark Singer and Raf Sanchez, both at Beazley, about the issue of profiling and the GDPR. Mark Singer is a member of the Cyber & Executive Risk Group at Beazley. Mark handles insurance coverage issues arising out of cybersecurity, technology errors and omissions, data privacy, intellectual property, media and advertising liabilities. Raf […]

Cartoon: Data Subject Access Requests Under the CCPA and GDPR

This cartoon is about data subject access requests (DSARs) — sometimes called “subject access requests” (SARs).  The GDPR Article 15 provides for DSARs.  The new California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) provides individuals with a right to learn about the personal data collected and shared about them over the past 12 months. For more background about […]

ALI Principles of Law, Data Privacy

I’m thrilled that, the American Law Institute (ALI) has approved the Principles of the Law, Data Privacy. Professor Paul Schwartz and I were co-reporters on the project.  According to the ALI press release: “The Principles seek to provide a set of best practices for entities that collect and control data concerning individuals and guidance for […]

A Major Move to Weaken HIPAA

Quietly, at the end of April, HIPAA was significantly weakened.  HHS published what sounds like an innocuous notification in the Federal Register: Notification of Enforcement Discretion Regarding HIPAA Civil Money Penalties.  This notification is actually an enormous change to the HIPAA penalty structure, a drastic reduction in HIPAA fines. The existing penalty structure under HIPAA […]

Cartoon: Data Minimization

This privacy cartoon is about data minimization, a principle embodied in many privacy laws.  Under the data minimization principle, organizations are to collect, process, or share only the minimum necessary personal data to achieve their purpose.  There’s a lot of hat tipping to data minimization, but this principle is often not followed enough.  Far too […]

Anatomy of a Privacy Law

I was recently giving a presentation about new privacy laws, and I created the infographic above to catalog the various elements that privacy laws often have.  Going through this list can help to assess how complete a privacy law is.  For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is often compared to the General Data […]

Will the United States Finally Enact a Federal Comprehensive Privacy Law?

These days, there seems to be a lot of energy around a federal comprehensive privacy law in the United States.  When the US Congress started passing privacy laws in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, it eschewed the route of passing a comprehensive privacy law, opting instead for the sectoral approach — passing a series of […]

Cartoon: The CCPA, a Federal Comprehensive Privacy Law, and Preemption

For years, many policymakers, industry representatives, and commentators were opposed to a comprehensive federal privacy law.  They typical federalism arguments were often trotted out. Then, in 2018, California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Now, there seems to be a chorus for a comprehensive federal privacy law with preemption.  I’ll be posting soon about […]

Please Join Us at the International Privacy and Security Forum (April 3-5, 2019)

I hope that you can join us for the International Privacy+Security Forum (April 3-5, 2019 in Washington, DC). The International Privacy+Security Forum is an annual sister event to the Privacy+Security Forum, an annual event held in October at George Washington University in Washington, DC.  The Int’l Forum event focuses on privacy and security laws from […]