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Christopher Cwalina is a Partner in ourWashington D.C.office
Yesterday, two FTC officials urged companies, websites and
parties (including third-parties) involved in the online and mobile
ecosystem to reassess and carefully evaluate their data collection,
use and sharing practices in light of the FTC's recent broad
expansion of its online privacy rule for children. [
Click to view our December 19, 2012 blog post]. The FTC
made clear that they would pursue entities that ignored their
obligations. During a webinar hosted by the International
Association of Privacy Professionals, FTC senior attorneys Mamie
Kresses and Phyllis Marcus described the COPPA Rule changes saying
that companies need to examine their data collection practices in
light of technological advances, and that this was the whole
purpose of the new Rule. Since the issuance of the new Rule,
there have been a lot of questions from businesses. While
many of these questions remain unanswered, what is clear is that
companies that never had to think about COPPA before, will now have
to.
To help address some of the uncertainty, the regulators said the
FTC is planning to release a guide for businesses about the new
Rule and said they would not be issuing a static guide, signaling
their input may vary over time leading up to July 1st the effective
date of the new Rule. For instance, FTC Chief Technologist
Steve Bellovin recently proposed that industry should create a
standard--perhaps through the URL - that would allow websites to
explicitly signal their COPPA-covered status to third-parties in a
position to track children with plug-ins, widgets, or other
third-party content or services.
While much uncertainty remains, what is certain is that companies
should be evaluating their data collection practices - in light of
the new COPPA Rule changes - now. A company should identify
the spectrum of third-parties implicated by their websites and
mobile apps in order to determine: (1) which "persistent
identifiers" qualify as personal information subject to the
new Rule, (2) those instances where parental consent can be readily
obtained, and (3) those situations where parental consent is not
desired and the third-party tag or server call will need to either
be removed or replaced with one that is compliant, and (4) those
third-party arrangements which require intensive oversight and
contractual protections.
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guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.
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In this environment of growing attention to the risks of data security breaches, and in the midst of an explosion of mobile applications that make data storage an increasingly far-flung proposition, many organizations assume that the first line of defense for a company with a Web site or a mobile app is a good privacy policy.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released the fourth revision of its standard-setting computer security guide, Special Publication 800-53 titled Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations, and this marks a very important release in the world of data privacy controls and standards.
The obligations of hedge funds, investment managers and service providers to protect confidential information relating to investors and avoid breaches of data privacy legislation is increasingly in focus.
In a recently released decision from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Mais v. Gulf Coast Collection Bureau, et al., Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr., granted in part and denied in part cross motions for summary judgment in a putative class action before considering the issue of class certification.
The report also found that most utilities only comply with mandatory cybersecurity standards, and have not implemented voluntary NERC recommendations regarding general or specific threats (e.g., Stuxnet).
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