Privacy Risk Report

Tressler’s Privacy Practice Group brings you recent developments and insights on cyber liability, privacy and data storage.

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By: Tressler LLP

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Dibora Berhanu
Todd Rowe

Latest from Privacy Risk Report

There is little dispute that the Illinois Biometric Information Protection Act (“BIPA”) is a unique privacy law to the extent that it creates a private cause of action for any failures to notify individuals before their biometric information is collected and stored. That is, BIPA potentially creates a liability regardless of whether there was a breach of private information. Further complicating matters is the fact that many data collectors that qualify as “financial institutions” or…
As the number of lawsuits based on claimed violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Protection Act (“BIPA”) increase, litigants have struggled to find guidance from the courts on this new area of law. The Ninth Circuit’s August 8, 2019 decision in Patel v. Facebook, Inc., No. 18-15982 (August 8, 2019) provides slightly more guidance. In Facebook, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s finding that allegations related to Facebook’s use and storage of “face templates”…
The compliance deadline for the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) is January 1, 2020. Even though the CCPA is the first privacy law that will directly impact a large number of U.S. businesses, the best strategy for most U.S. businesses will be to take a measured response toward this new law. GDPR Hysteria The General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) has been in effect for more than a year. And, without question, GDPR has impacted privacy…
The law related to Illinois Biometric Information Protection Act (“BIPA”) came to a halt over the last year or so while the Illinois Supreme Court analyzed what constitutes an injury under the Act. As expected, courts have started to once again visit the various legal issues related to biometric data now that the Rosenbach decision has been issued. Now that BIPA cases are moving through the courts again, one major issue will be what is…
The current roster of threats–ransomware, phishing schemes and hacking–are well understood at this point. Of course, these threats are constantly evolving as we live in a world where criminals get bored quickly and need to move on. The newest privacy threat may involve elaborately faked videos, called “deepfakes,” which may be used to disparage people. A manipulated video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently went viral was slowed down to make it appear she was …
It is a pivotal moment when the United States Supreme Court addresses data breach cases. There was a time when people said that cyber security would be like “Y2K” and any preparations for cyber issues would suffer the same embarrassing fate as buying a generator to prepare for “Y2K.” There is no need to get too emotional, but there is no reasonable dispute that privacy issues are now just a part of our lives. April 24,…
While the United States may not have data protections in place that are as extensive as those seen the European Union’s adoption of GDPR, there is still a comprehensive framework of state and federal regulations in place to protect personal information. Many industries are building on the foundation set by state and federal guidelines by creating industry-specific cyber standards. For example, various organizations in the insurance industry are taking steps to ensure their members…
Protecting against cyber attacks requires coordination between data collectors and their vendors who assist in protecting that data.  Typically, vendors include public relations professionals, forensic experts and security experts to assist after the breach.  It is important to keep in mind that a vendor’s work may be controlled through contracts or agreements that place a number of obligations on a data collector.  That is, in order to receive the vendors’ assistance, a data collector may have…
Biometric data is playing a larger role in employment law as more employers begin using equipment to scan employees’ fingerprints to clock in for work. Each week more employers are defending themselves against claims by the employees such as the class action lawsuit filed against Patriot Medical Transport in Cook County Circuit Court last month. The employees in the Patriot Medical litigation claim they “have suffered injury from the unlawful collection and storage of their…
[embedded content] Data breach litigation inherently involves a significant amount of information, so it is no surprise to see discovery issues in breach cases. The typical data breach lawsuit may include discovery requests for pre-breach information (response plans, audits), response information (notification letters and phone scripts) and post breach information (remediation and vendor information).  Suffice it to say, there is ripe opportunity for discovery disputes with this amount of information needing to be exchanged between…