Just when we thought we had an remote understanding on how the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) would work from an enforcement and penalty perspective, Senate Bill 561 was introduced on February 22. The bill has the full support of Attorney General Xavier Becerra and appears to be heading for a vote; the odds are favoring passage. It is not surprising that the Attorney General supports the proposed changes because they remove some of the…

Every day all over the world, companies fall victim to cybersecurity attacks.  It’s nearly a constant these days.  Many of these attacks are preventable with the right amount of attention to detail in system setup and hardening.  The three common themes in postmortem examination of all of these attacks boil down to 1) human error; 2) configuration error; 3) failing to proactively defend.  In this series of six posts, we will dive into each attack’s…

California, home to more than 40 million people and the 5th largest economy in the world, has passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), its omnibus consumer privacy law. The law creates sweeping new requirements concerning the collection, maintenance, and tracking of information for both employees or customers who are residents of California. Many aspects of the implementation and enforcement are still being finalized by the California Attorney General. However, companies with employees or customers…

This weekend, Google was fined 50 million euros (over $55 million) by France’s Data Privacy Authority,  CNIL, for breaching Europe’s (fairly) new General Data Protection Regulation. GDPR lays the framework for the legal processing of personal data, requiring that companies  have a lawful basis for processing a user’s personal information.  This lawful basis can result from the user’s genuine consent prior to collecting personal information; processing necessary for the performance of a contract, compliance with…

On January 4, 2019, the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District issued an opinion reminding us that under California law, tax returns are privileged and improper disclosure of them can even potentially rise to tortious invasion of privacy claims in overturning a demurrer as to that claim. Strawn v. Morris, Polich & Purdy, LLP, No. A150562, 2019 Cal. App. LEXIS 9 (Ct. App. Jan. 4, 2019). Federal and state tax returns have been held…

Prevention, Crisis Management, and Mitigating Personal Liability Thursday, January 31, 2019 8:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Breakfast & Registration 8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Program Seyfarth Shaw LLP New York Office The New York Times Building 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018 Seyfarth Attorneys: Kevin Lesinski Richard Lutkus Gregory Markel William Prickett There is no cost to attend but registration is required and seating is limited. This program will provide Boards, C-Suites and General…

Seyfarth Shaw Partner Jason Priebe was recently interviewed by C4CM regarding his tips for records retention.  This thoughtful discussion covered not only record retention policies, but information governance, risk, and potential costs resulting from the increasing volume of data produced during litigation.  Jason also provided practical steps to formulate a record retention policy when one is not in place.  To learn more, read the full interview here.…