Several states are following the path of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), a law that has led to a rise in the volume of class action privacy litigation and underlined the significance of enterprise-level management of biometric data (e.g., fingerprint, voiceprint, and retina, facial, or iris image). Organizations that gather and utilize biometric data … Continue Reading
Reed Smith will be hosting an upcoming CLE webinar, “Best Practices for managing privacy risks in vendor engagements – diligence, contracting, and oversight under the California law” on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 2:00 PM ET. This program will offer a review on how organizations can approach third-party information sharing under the CCPA. Furthermore, as … Continue Reading
Life sciences companies doing business in France will be interested in the recent results of Optical Center’s appeal of a penalty assessed by the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés, the French data protection authority, surrounding a data breach. The data breach allowed access to invoices and purchases containing personal and sensitive customer data. … Continue Reading
A recent bill introduced by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is attempting to place heightened security standards on all Internet of Things (IoT) devices procured by any federal agency. Should the legislation be enacted, the expectations it sets forth regarding the security of IoT devices could be interpreted by courts as the minimal floor for any … Continue Reading
Following a recent U.S. government interagency report indicating that, on average, there has been an alarming 300 percent spike in daily ransomware attacks since early 2016 as compared with 2015, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) released new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) guidance on … Continue Reading
The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield has been adopted by the European Commission. On July 12, 2016, following a positive vote from the member states (the Article 31 Committee) on July 8, the EU College of Commissioners formally adopted the Privacy Shield. The Privacy Shield enters into force immediately in the EU. In the U.S., the Privacy … Continue Reading
For global pharmaceutical and medical device companies handling personal data in the European Union (EU) or engaged in transatlantic data transfers, some of the many questions created by the Brexit vote include what its impact will be on the United Kingdom’s (UK) data protection laws. These questions also arise in the context of the EU’s … Continue Reading
The Reed Smith Information Technology, Privacy & Data Security Group will be hosting an upcoming webinar “The Biggest Shake Up of European Data Protection Law in 20 Years: What Your Organisation Needs to Do to Comply with the General Data Protection Regulation“ on June 7, 2016 at 11:00 a.m. ET, 16:00 p.m. BST and 17:00 … Continue Reading
In a ruling particularly meaningful to health care companies, who are responsible for patients’ protected, personally-identifiable information, the U.S. Court of Appeals recently upheld a lower court’s decision finding coverage under a healthcare company’s comprehensive general liability (CGL) policy. When the health care company inadvertently made certain confidential medical records accessible to the public online … Continue Reading
By Divonne Smoyer and Brad Rostolsky on Posted in Privacy & HIPAA
Businesses working with U.S. customer or employee data are very familiar with the roles the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and other federal agencies play in privacy regulation and enforcement. But, increasingly, if your company ends up facing a health – or other data – incident, you may find … Continue Reading
The European Commission has published its draft adequacy decision on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, the proposed data transfer framework that would replace the defunct Safe Harbor program. The draft adequacy decision formally supports the view that the proposed EU-U.S. Privacy Shield will ensure an adequate level of protection for the transfer of personal data from … Continue Reading
President Obama signed the U.S. Judicial Redress Act (JRA) into law on 24 February 2016, giving European citizens the same right as U.S. citizens to bring actions against the U.S. government if their personal data are misused. While the JRA is not a formal prerequisite to finalizing the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield transatlantic data-sharing framework, it’s … Continue Reading
European Union and United States authorities have announced the “EU-U.S. Privacy Shield,” a new transatlantic data transfer framework to replace Safe Harbor, which was invalidated by the European Court of Justice in October in Maximillian Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner (C-362-14). Since this issue has clear implications for our pharmaceutical and medical device clients, we’ve … Continue Reading
Last year, the European Court of Justice issued a judgment invalidating the safe harbor framework for US-EU data sharing, creating uncertainty and a number of questions about what is, and is not, permissible when sharing data involving personal information across borders. The Safe Harbor decision has clear implications for our pharmaceutical and medical device clients, … Continue Reading
Russia announced its plan to increase data localization audits in 2016 pledging to conduct around 1,000 data localization compliance audits and 2,000 monitoring procedures, under Russia’s data protection authority, the Roskomnadzor. This stems from Russia’s data localization law which came into effect September 1, 2015, requiring that all companies that collect or process personal data … Continue Reading
Exactly one month after the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) released its judgment in Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner (C-362-14), the European Union released a Communication discussing the implications of their decision on data sharing involving personal information. This topic is no stranger to the blog, as we’ve posted about it … Continue Reading
Data privacy issues in the European Union seem to be a reoccurring theme here on the blog, following Court of Justice of the European Union’s judgment in Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner (C-362-14) on October 6. We’ve posted about it here and also had a recent Reed Smith Client Alert here. Last week, European … Continue Reading
The Reed Smith Life Sciences Health Industry (LSHI) Group will be hosting an upcoming webinar “Cross-Border E-Discovery & New Ruling Regarding the US-EU Safe Harbor Framework” on November 24, 2015 from 9:00 a.m. PT, 12:00 p.m. ET, 5:00 p.m. GMT until 10:00 a.m. 1:00 p.m. ET, 6:00 p.m. GMT. Reed Smith presenters including London based … Continue Reading
As you know, data privacy issues in the European Union are still fresh in the news, given the recent changes outlined in the Safe Harbor decision; we’ve written about it here, here and here. A recent Reed Smith Client Alert outlines frequently asked questions on what businesses need to know now in lieu of the … Continue Reading
Data privacy in the European Union is a hot topic at the moment. In addition to the recent ruling regarding the “Safe Harbor Ruling” affecting data transferred between the EU and the US, a study was recently published criticizing several aspects of the EU’s development of its Digital Single Market (“DSM”) strategy. As defined by … Continue Reading
As previously discussed here and here the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its judgment in Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner (Case C-362/14) that the Safe Harbor Decision no longer provides adequate protection for data transferred between the EU and the U.S. In light of this ruling, Reed Smith will be … Continue Reading
In a decision with significant potential ramifications for flows of personal data from the European Union to the United States, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its judgment in Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner (Case C-362/14) that the Safe Harbor Decision no longer provides adequate protection for data transferred between … Continue Reading
Cybersecurity issues are nothing new to those operating in the health care industry. But while these issues have most commonly been faced by hospitals and health care providers, medical device companies must now take note. As reported recently in the news, medical devices have increasingly become the targets for cybersecurity breaches, given the information contained … Continue Reading
Reed Smith’s Information Technology Privacy & Data Security Group has been doing phenomenal work for years, linking experienced cybersecurity and privacy professionals with veteran intellectual property litigators, information governance advisors, technology contracting specialists and others with a similar data-oriented perspective. And now it has been recognized by The Legal 500 United States as its ‘Data Protection … Continue Reading
