Data Security

Over the past several months, many states, including Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington, have passed significant amendments to their state data breach notification laws.  Currently, most state data breach notification laws only require notification of residents (and possibly state regulators or others) following a “breach” of personally identifiable information (“PII”), which is often defined as a resident’s name along with a Social Security number, driver’s license or state identification card number, or a financial account, debit, or credit card number with any required security code, access code, or password to access a financial account.  Among other changes, these amendments have expanded the categories of PII that may trigger notification obligations if breached, imposed new requirements to notify regulators (in addition to affected individuals) in the event of a breach, and implemented specific timing requirements for how soon after a breach individuals and regulators must be notified.  These changes are summarized in additional detail below.
Continue Reading Round-Up of Recent Changes to U.S. State Data Breach Notification Laws

On July 25, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed two data security and breach notification bills into law.  The first bill, the “Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security Act” or “SHIELD Act,” will impose specific data security requirements on businesses that own or license private information of New York residents, in addition to amending New York’s data breach notification statute to broaden the circumstances under which notification may be required.  The second bill, meanwhile, will require consumer reporting agencies to offer identity theft prevention and mitigation services.  Both bills are described in further detail below.
Continue Reading New York Passes New Data Security and Breach Notification Requirements

On June 13, 2019, the Cyberspace Administration of China (“CAC”) issued the draft Measures on Security Assessment of the Cross-border Transfer of Personal Information (“Draft Measures”) for public comment. (The official Chinese version of the Draft Measures is available here, and an unofficial English translation is available here.) The comment period ends on July 13, 2019.

The issuance of the Draft Measures marks another major development in the implementation of China’s Cybersecurity Law (“CSL”) over the past month, aiming to create a cross-border data transfer mechanism that would govern all of the transfers of personal information conducted by network operators (defined as “owners and managers of networks, as well as network service providers”).

CAC has previously released two earlier versions of its draft Measures on Security Assessment of Cross-border Transfer of Personal Information and Important Data back in 2017, which imposed security assessment obligations on network operators when they transfer both personal information and important data outside of China (See Covington’s previous alert here). The latest and long-anticipated Draft Measures only focus on the cross-border transfer of personal information (the cross-border transfer of important data will be subject to a separate approval mechanism introduced by the draft Measures for Data Security Management released by CAC on May 28, 2019) and also set out new requirements that bear resemblance to the Standard Contractual Clauses under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

We discuss the key requirements of the Draft Measures in a greater detail below.…

Continue Reading China Seeks Public Comments on Draft Measures related to the Cross-border Transfer of Personal Information

On May 28, 2019, the Cyberspace Administration of China (“CAC”) released the draft Measures for Data Security Management (“Draft Measures”) for public comment. (An official Chinese version of the Draft Measures is available here and an unofficial English translation is available here.) The comment period ends on June 28, 2019.

The release of these Draft Measures demonstrates China’s continuing efforts to implement the data protection requirements imposed by China’s Cybersecurity Law (“CSL”). For example, under Article 41 of the CSL, network operators must notify individuals of the purposes, methods and scope of the information collection and use, and obtain their consent before collecting or using individuals’ personal information. Furthermore, under Article 42 and 43 of the CSL, network operators must not disclose, tamper with, or damage citizens’ personal information that they have collected, and they are further obligated to delete unlawfully collected information and amend incorrect information.

To implement the CSL, the CAC and the Standardization Administration of China issued a national standard for personal information protection (“Standard”) on January 2, 2018, which took effect on May 1, 2018 (see our previous blog post about that Standard here). A draft amendment to the Standard (“Draft Amendment”) was released for public comment on February 1, 2019 (see our previous blog post about the Draft Amendment here). The new Draft Measures incorporate some of personal information protection requirements specified in the Standard and the Draft Amendment, and also introduce a number of new requirements for the protection of “important data,” which was initially mentioned in Article 21 and 37 of the CSL, but was not defined.…

Continue Reading China Releases Draft Measures for Data Security Management

On May 13, 2019, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (“SAMR”) released three core national standards related to the country’s Cybersecurity Multi-level Protection Scheme (“MLPS”), describing technical and organizational controls that companies must follow when complying with MLPS-related obligations under the Cybersecurity Law (“CSL”).  These standards, which are commonly referred to as the “MLPS 2.0…

One week from today, Covington will host its first webinar in a series on connected and automated vehicles (“CAVs”). The webinar will take place on February 27 from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. During the webinar, Covington’s regulatory and legislative experts will cover developments in U.S. law and regulations relating to CAVs. Those topics…

The Governor of Massachusetts recently signed House Bill No. 4806 into law, which will amend certain provisions of the state’s data breach notification law.  In addition to changing the information that must be included in notifications to regulators and individuals, the amendments will also require entities to provide eighteen months of free credit monitoring services following breaches involving Social Security numbers.  The amendments, which will enter into force on April 11, 2019, are discussed in greater detail below.
Continue Reading Massachusetts Amends Data Breach Notification Law to Require Free Credit Monitoring

Recent years have seen significant amounts of legislative activity related to state data breach notification laws, and 2018 was no exception.  Not only did South Dakota and Alabama enact new data breach notification laws in 2018, becoming the last of 50 U.S. states to enact such laws, but other states also enacted changes to existing data breach notification laws during 2018 to expand their scope and implement additional notification requirements.  Following up on our global year-end review of major privacy and cybersecurity developments, we’ve summarized the major developments and trends observed with regards to state data breach notification laws over the past year.
Continue Reading State Data Breach Notification Laws: 2018 in Review

On December 6, 2018, the Australian Parliament passed a bill that aims to address concerns raised by national security and law enforcement agencies regarding encrypted communications.

Introduced in September, the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 (the Act) may affect technology companies around the globe.  As discussed in our previous post, the Act requires “designated communications providers” (a definition that includes foreign and domestic communications providers) to provide support to Australian government agencies under new legal bases provided by the Act’s framework.  A Technical Assistance Notice (TAN), for example, will permit certain government entities to require assistance that a designated communications provider is already capable of giving.  If the provider lacks the capability to assist, a Technical Capability Notice (TCN) may require the provider to build such capability.

As described in greater detail in the Act’s accompanying Explanatory Memorandum, the ability to issue TANs and TCNs is not without limitation.  Importantly, neither forms of Notice may require providers to implement or build a “systemic weakness or systemic vulnerability” into their electronic protections, or prevent providers from patching such weaknesses or vulnerabilities.  Recent additions to the Act took this prohibition even further—requiring that in any case where a weakness is selectively introduced to a “target” technology connected with a particular person, the prohibition against systemic weaknesses or vulnerabilities extends to anything that would “jeopardize the security of information held by any other person” aside from the intended target.  The phrase “jeopardize the security of information” is defined by the Act as any “act or thing that creates a material risk that otherwise secure information can be accessed by an unauthorized party.”…

Continue Reading Australia’s Encryption Bill Becomes Law

On December 4, 2018, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced that it is accepting public comments regarding its Identity Theft Detection Rules, 16 C.F.R. Part 681 (the “Rules”), as part of a systematic review of the Commission’s regulations and guidelines. The review of the Rules is particularly noteworthy because identity theft is among the top consumer complaints to the FTC, and has been an enforcement priority for the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
…
Continue Reading FTC Solicits Public Comment on Identity Theft Detection Rules