What do serial killers, employees who don’t want their fingerprints shared and a U.S. Senator have in common? Data privacy. In this podcast, Victoria Beckman, Co-Chair of Frost Brown Todd’s Privacy and Data Security Team, discusses this and other news. If you have ideas for more interviews or stories, please email info@thedataprivacydetective.com.
The Data Privacy Detective turns the spotlight on five American data privacy developments in a conversation with Melissa Kern, Co-Chair of Frost Brown Todd’s Privacy and Data Security Team. 1. California’s data privacy law, CCPA, comes into force in 2020. It’s occupied attention because of California’s size and its potential extraterritorial application. It provides limited rights for individuals to sue companies that violate CCPA, restricted to certain cases of data breach. Privacy advocates we...
The May 2-3, 2019 International Association of Privacy Professionals Conference featured leading U.S. officials and participants in the data privacy field. Mike Nitardy, a certified Privacy Professional (U.S.) and data privacy attorney at Frost Brown Todd LLC shares highlights from the conference. If you have ideas for more interviews or stories, please email info@thedataprivacydetective.com.
Picture frontline employees – like those at a motel’s front desk. In come ICE agents with gold badges asking to see guest logs, aiming to identify and track down undocumented aliens. What’s the desk attendant to do? Most likely, cooperate without thinking it through. This led to costly problems for Motel 6 – a $12 million settlement in the State of Washington alone. The lesson is this – don’t let frontline employees decide whether to turn over personal data of guests or customers. That’s a big d...
Businesses have far more personal data than they think they have, and information expands by the hour. This is a key finding from an April 2019 Data Privacy Maturity Study from Integris Software – www.integris.io. Data flows change daily, and yet many businesses rely on spreadsheets and annual surveys to learn what data they house, resulting in inaccurate information that risks reputation and non-compliance. Kristina Bergman, Integris’ founder and CEO, offers important insights in this podcast a...
Businesses hold vast amounts of digital and hard copy data. Much is personal data regulated by differing country and state laws and rules. The first step towards personal data privacy compliance is to know what personal data are held by a company. But traditional means of inventorying personal data undercount and are almost always behind the curve of time. Network analytics is the answer to this challenge. In this episode, the Data Privacy Detective has a conversation with 1touch’s CCO Mark Well...
Data incidents arise regularly for businesses. The perpetrators range from sophisticated scoundrels seeking a quick ransom payment, to foreign governments conducting industrial espionage, to thieves seeking inside information, to distant hackers seeking personal data to sell on the dark web. When an incident arises, companies turn to legal counsel as part of the response team. In this podcast, Bob Dibert, a Frost Brown Todd attorney with 30 years’ experience and a veteran of data incidents, disc...
The European Commission issued its second review of how the EU PrivacyShield is working in late December 2018. Over 4,000 U.S. firms have signed up so far for this method of dealing with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) of the European Union that protects personal data of its residents. The Commission’s report approves U.S. efforts to support the bilateral agreement that supports the Privacy Shield, with one important matter to be address in February 2019. If you have ideas for more...
China should never be viewed through a foreign lens. And yet, what other lens do we have from the USA or most of the world but to do just that? Bloomberg News reported two statistics on November 21, 2018 that will shock most non-Chinese citizens – “By the end of May, people with bad credit in China have been blocked from booking more than 11 million flights and 4 million high-speed train trips, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.” If you have ideas for more interviews or...
Russia governs personal data of its residents based on a generally applicable law. As a federal country, Russia has rules below the federal law, but they conform to standards set by statute throughout the nation. Though not as comprehensive as Europe’s broadly extensive General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Russia’s statute aims to protect the personal data of Russians similar to the GDPR’s approach. Concepts of consent of persons to use their data, privacy by design, data minimization, cyb...
The internet was once viewed as an instrument of freedom. It freed communications across borders, aided the ability of people to rally against repressive governments, dramatically lowered entry barriers to sellers of goods and services across borders. But like many good things, the internet has been increasingly harnessed to repress – or more neutrally to assist those in control of government to keep their power and a watchful eye and long arm over those who threaten their view of public order, ...
Because U.S. states employ over 16 million people and hold the data of almost all American residents, state governments are major targets for data villains seeking to obtain data about us. How safe is our personal information in the hands of state governments and what security challenges must states address to better protect personal data? Podcast guest Trey Grayson is a veteran of these issues, having served as Kentucky’s Secretary of State for eight years and later as director of Harvard’s Ken...
The EU’s GDPR requires businesses outside the EU to appoint a “representative” in a member state and a Data Protection Officer in the EU to consult on and monitor data privacy matters. In this episode, Alessandro Di Mattia joins us to explore the definitions and requirements surrounding these positions and the roles they play in protecting consumer personal data according to the GDPR.
The California Supreme Court faced a challenge that may have been the first stone cast in a global debate about free expression on the internet. The case centered on a San Francisco law firm that got a one-star YELP review from an unhappy former client. When the firm’s YELP rating dipped from 5.0 to 4.5 the law firm successfully sued the reviewer for a defamation claim. YELP was not originally a party to the case, but when the judgment ordered YELP to remove the information, YELP refused. If you...
“California enacts the strictest online privacy law in the country!” trumpeted CNN/Tech. A statute passed unanimously in the legislature and immediately signed by Governor Brown, AB 375, had the support of large tech firms and privacy advocates. It moves California in the direction of the European Union, granting rights to California consumers concerning personal information they share online. The Data Privacy Detective turns his magnifying glass on this statute. It will have an impact. If Calif...
Businesses not located in the European Union have tried to understand whether the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), applies to them. And if it does, or if it might, one of the puzzles has been whether a non-EU business needs to appoint a natural person or legal entity to be its “representative” or a natural person to be its “Data Protection Officer” for dealing with EU and its Member States’ Data Protection Authorities (DPAs). This podcast focuses on that question. If you have ideas for...
How did U.S. businesses deal with the launch of GDPR? And what’s its immediate impact on how U.S. businesses address personal information they have? The Data Privacy Detective turns the magnifying glass to this question, focusing on small and mid-sized (SME) U.S. businesses that hold personal data of Europeans. Most coverage about GDPR is about titanic battles of tech giants whose business models are based on monetizing customer data. My spyglass turns to a different subject: How did SMEs in the...
GDPR, the European Union’s effort to protect personal data, has dominated the efforts of businesses to deal with personal data across borders. Less noticed is China’s evolving system of controlling, regulating and protecting the personal information of its people. On May 1, 2018, China issued standards for personal information protection.
In this podcast episode, the Data Privacy Detective discusses the background to the EU / U.S. and Swiss Privacy Shield and how it relates to the new requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)that will take effect on May 25, 2018. If you have ideas for more interviews or stories, please email info@thedataprivacydetective.com.
In this podcast, the Data Privacy Detective turns a magnifying glass to how businesses located outside the EU can gather and use personal data that originates in the EU without violating the GDPR. Businesses inside the EU are actively working to bring their policies and procedures in line with the GDPR, with the benefit of many years of practice under the 1995 EU Directive that required EU countries to adopt laws based on a common background and similar principles to what becomes a directly bind...
The Data Privacy Detective explored in prior podcasts the broad scope of personal data, the differences between controllers and processors and other matters, including how processing can be lawful. That includes several specific, limited instances when acquisition and use of personal data can be legitimate in the absence of express consent of the persons whose data are held.
The EU’s GDPR – the General Data Protection Regulation – becomes law on May 25, 2018. This podcast explores what processing of personal data as defined by the GDPR is considered lawful. “Processing” is defined very broadly by Article 4.2 to encompass a wide variety of ways in which personal data are held or used. Article 6 describes what constitutes “Lawfulness of Processing.” It lists six alternatives for when processing is lawful. The first and most basic is if “the data subject has given cons...
The GDPR defines personal data very broadly. But it is not an all-encompassing effort to protect all personal data from every conceivable use or misuse. “Personal data” is defined by Article 4.1 as “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or ...
Businesses collect, use and store personal data. It’s unavoidable. An email address, phone number, birthdate, postal address – these are all personal data that allow someone to identify or contact an individual. Other information is far more sensitive, such as health information, religious preference, political beliefs, race or ethnic origin, sexual preference, and financial details. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) classifies businesses that hold personal data as c...
How does a non-EU business know if it must comply with the GDPR? And what specific things are required if the answer is yes? This podcast explores these questions, detailing the specific activities that require a non-EU business to comply with this EU regulation. Merely having a website is not enough. But if a company aims to sell goods or services to Europeans or to monitor the behavior of EU citizens or residents, compliance is expected. Conducting a data inventory and creating a data map are ...
On May 25, 2018 the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation becomes law – not just within the EU but everywhere in the world in some respects. It is deliberately extraterritorial. The EU is serious about compliance with the GDPR. Fines can be as high as 4% of a company’s gross revenues or 20 million Euros. The Data Privacy Detective launches a thorough exploration of the GDPR with this podcast, starting with the history, the context and the GDPR’s basic aim of protecting the personal...
In this podcast, the Data Privacy Detective talks about tech support scams with Michael Severini, Director of Information Security for one of America’s large law firms, Frost Brown Todd LLC. A tech support scam can start with a phone call claiming to provide computer support and security. But increasingly this scam pops up when you click on a website and your screen freezes, with a warning page that your pc is infected and you need to call a toll-free number immediately for help. If you have ide...
The risk of the Internet of Things (IoT) is far more than a stolen credit card number or a banking loss. The risk could be mortal and pervasive if a critical device is hacked and a malicious command is issued through the IoT.
Phishing is an effort by cybercriminals to use bait in the guise of a familiar email address to hook you into revealing your sensitive information. This podcast tells a real story of two college professors who were initial victims of a clever evolution of a phishing scam.
On July 25, 2017, the FBI issued a TLP:AMBER alert on its Cyber Watch system about an elaborate cyber-criminal attack underway by sources believed to originate from Iran. The Alert lists about 200 domain names and IP addresses that individuals and businesses should avoid. The Alert lists four actions that all persons and businesses should take to avoid being harmed, not only by this attack, but to address the burgeoning rise of malware and other attacks against our data privacy and use of the in...
