Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On December 30, 2015, the Department of Defense (“DoD”) issued a second interim rule (80 F. R. 81472) that extends the deadline by which federal contractors must implement the new cybersecurity requirements previously issued by the agency.  This extension pushes back the compliance deadline to December 31, 2017.

Late last year the Federal Trade Commission issued enforcement guidance on “native advertising” — ads that purposely are formatted to appear as noncommercial and are integrated into surrounding editorial content. The agency’s guidance took two parts: an Enforcement Policy Statement on deceptively formatted ads, and a Guide for Business on native advertising. These long-awaited guidance documents follow on the FTC’s December 2013 “Blurred Lines” workshop on native advertising. Importantly, the FTC notes that its policy statement does not apply just to advertisers but also to other parties that help create the content: ad agencies, ad networks and potentially, publishers.

On December 30, 2015, the Pew Research Center released a report on the results of a recent survey that asked 461 Americans about their feelings toward sharing personal information with companies. The survey found that a “significant minority” of American adults have felt “confused over information provided in company privacy policies, discouraged by the amount of effort needed to understand the implications of sharing their data, and impatient because they wanted to learn more about the information-sharing process but felt they needed to make a decision right away.”

On December 15, 2015, the California Attorney General announced an approximately $25 million settlement with Comcast Cable Communications, LLC (“Comcast”) stemming from allegations that Comcast disposed of electronic equipment (1) without properly deleting customer information from the equipment and (2) in landfills that are not authorized to accept electronic equipment. The settlement must be approved by a California judge before it is finalized.

On December 21, 2015, the Federal Trade Commission announced software company Oracle Corporation (“Oracle”) has agreed to settle FTC charges that accused the company of misrepresenting the security of its software updates. The proposed Agreement Containing Consent Order (“Consent Order”) stems from an FTC complaint that alleged the company had deceived consumers about the security provided by updates to the Java Platform, Standard Edition software (“Java SE”).

On December 17, 2015, the German Federal Diet (Bundestag) adopted a draft law introducing class action-like claims that will enable consumer protection associations to sue companies for violations of German data protection law.

On December 17, 2015, the Federal Trade Commission announced that LifeLock, Inc. (“LifeLock”) has agreed to pay $100 million to settle contempt charges for deceptive advertising. According to the FTC, “[t]his is the largest monetary award obtained by the Commission in an order enforcement action.” Under the terms of the settlement, $68 million of the settlement amount will be paid to class action consumers who were injured by the identity theft protection company’s violation of a 2010 settlement with the FTC that required LifeLock to protect consumer information. The rest of the money will be used for settlements with state attorneys general, and any remaining money will go to the FTC. The case is Federal Trade Commission v. LifeLock Inc., et al. (2:10-cv-00530), in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.

On December 17, 2015, the FTC announced a pair of COPPA settlements against operators of child-directed mobile apps available for download in the major app stores. These cases are the FTC’s first COPPA actions involving the collection of persistent identifiers, and no other personal information, from children since the FTC’s updated COPPA Rule went into effect in 2013. The FTC levied civil penalties, totaling $360,000, in both cases.

On December 14, 2015, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced that it had settled potential HIPAA Security Rule violations with the University of Washington on behalf of the university’s medical center, medical school and affiliated labs and clinics (collectively, “UW Medical”).

On December 17, 2015, after three years of drafting and negotiations, the European Parliament and Council of the European Union reached an informal agreement on the final draft of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (the “Regulation”), which is backed by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.