Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

Read the Dallas Business Journal's DBJ Confidential blog post discussing Hunton & Williams partner Lisa J. Sotto's thoughts on how companies should approach privacy issues in the United States. Sotto was interviewed while in Dallas giving a privacy law presentation for in-house counsel.

As we previously reported, the Mexican government has developed draft regulations for the implementation of Mexico’s Federal Law on the Protection of Personal Data in the Possession of Private Parties (Ley Federal de Protección de Datos Personales en Posesión de los Particulares). The U.S. Department of Commerce recently circulated an English translation of the draft regulations. Public comments on the draft are due on August 3, 2011, and Mexican officials have indicated they will not grant extensions for late submissions. A final version of the regulations is ...

As reported in BNA’s Privacy Law Watch, on July 25, 2011, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new federal law amending Russia’s personal data privacy law, “On Personal Data.” The amended law, which was made public on July 27 and is effective retroactively from July 1, 2011, imposes new rules on international data transfers. As we previously reported, and as noted by the BNA, Russia had been considering improving its data protection regime and has enacted two other laws regarding the protection of personal data in the past several weeks.

On July 25, 2011, Netflix stated that it will hold off on the launch of its Facebook integration in the U.S. due to legal issues related to the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”).  The new Facebook feature would allow Netflix subscribers to share their movie viewing information with friends online.  Netflix indicated in its second quarter shareholder letter that it supports House Bill 2471 (“H.B. 2471”), a proposed bipartisan amendment to the VPPA intended to clarify the consent requirement for sharing consumer video viewing information.  The letter states that “[u]nder the VPPA, it is ambiguous when and how a user can give permission for his or her video viewing data to be shared” and that the VPPA “discourages us from launching our Facebook integration domestically.”  As a result, the company plans to limit the campaign to Canada and Latin America until questions concerning the VPPA are resolved.

As reported in the Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives Blog:

The EEOC recently released an informal discussion letter suggesting that employers may be obligated to do more than just maintain a separate file for employee medical records, especially when those records are in an electronic format. Both the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”), as amended, and the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act of 2008 (“GINA”) require employers to maintain a confidential medical record, which is separate from the employee’s other personnel file(s), for information about the employee’s medical conditions, medical history or “genetic information.” The statutes do not, however, specify how such records are to be maintained or what level of security must be in place to protect the confidentiality of medical or genetic information.

As reported in BNA’s Privacy Law Watch, on July 19, 2011, President Obama announced his intention to nominate Maureen K. Ohlhausen to the Federal Trade Commission. Obama sent his official nomination to the Senate on July 21, 2011. If approved, Ohlhausen will serve a seven-year term beginning on September 26, 2011, replacing Commissioner William E. Kovacic.

A putative class action complaint filed on June 22, 2011, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California alleges that the popular cloud-based storage provider Dropbox, Inc. failed to secure users’ private data or to notify the vast majority of them about a data breach.  According to the complaint, Dropbox announced in a blog post on its website that it had “introduced a bug” on June 19, 2011, which allowed users logged in to its system to log into other users’ accounts and access those users’ data stored on Dropbox.  The complaint further claims that Dropbox did not notify most, if not all, of its 25 million users that their information had been compromised.  The complaint defines the plaintiff class as all current or former Dropbox users as of June 19, 2011, whose accounts were breached.

The Hong Kong Privacy Commissioner has issued a document soliciting comments regarding a proposal to require a wide range of data users to submit information about their activities to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data.  The proposal would be carried out pursuant to the Hong Kong Privacy Ordinance, which authorizes the Privacy Commissioner to require certain data users to submit data user returns.  Under the Ordinance, a “data user return” is a form certain data users must submit to the Privacy Commissioner for purposes of maintaining a data user registration database.  A “data user” is defined as “a person who, either alone or jointly or in common with other persons, controls the collection, holding, processing or use of [personal] data” (emphasis added).

On July 13, 2011, the Article 29 Working Party (the “Working Party”), adopted an Opinion on the concept of consent as a legal basis for processing personal data, which includes recommendations for improving the concept in the context of the ongoing review of the EU data protection framework.  The Opinion also analyzes the conditions for valid consent under EU data protection law (that consent must be “freely given,” “specific,” “unambiguous,” “explicit,” “informed,” etc.), and clarifies the obligations of data controllers seeking consent.  In addition, the Opinion provides examples of valid and invalid consent with respect to company social media, medical research, body scanners, PNR data and online gaming.

On July 14, 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee convened a joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade (chaired by Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA)), and the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology (chaired by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR)), to launch a comprehensive review of Internet privacy.  The series of hearings began with testimony from officials representing three agencies with jurisdiction over consumer privacy issues: FTC Commissioner Edith Ramirez, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, and Department of Commerce Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information Lawrence Strickling.