Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On February 17, 2017, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (“Horizon”) agreed to pay $1.1 million as part of a settlement with the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs (the “Division”) regarding allegations that Horizon did not adequately protect the privacy of nearly 690,000 policyholders.

On February 16, 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) entered into a resolution agreement with Memorial Healthcare System (“Memorial”) that emphasized the importance of audit controls in preventing breaches of protected health information (“PHI”). The $5.5 million settlement with Memorial is the fourth enforcement action taken by OCR in 2017, and matches the largest civil monetary ever imposed against a single covered entity.

On February 13, 2017, the Parliament of Australia passed legislation that amends the Privacy Act of 1988 (the “Privacy Act”) and requires companies with revenue over $3 million AUD ($2.3 million USD) to notify affected Australian residents and the Australian Information Commissioner (the “Commissioner”) in the event of an “eligible data breach.”

On February 15, 2017, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) at Hunton & Williams LLP submitted two sets of formal comments to the Article 29 Working Party (the “Working Party”). CIPL commented on the Guidelines for identifying a controller or processor’s lead supervisory authority (“Lead Authority Guidelines”), and on the Guidelines on the right to data portability (“Data Portability Guidelines”). Both were adopted by the Working Party on December 13, 2016, for public consultation. 

On February 15, 2017, the European Data Protection Supervisor (“EDPS”) published its Priorities for 2017 (the “EDPS Priorities”). The EDPS Priorities consist of a note listing the strategic priorities and a color-coded table listing the European Commission’s proposals that require the EDPS’ attention, sorted by level of priority.

On February 4, 2017, the Cyberspace Administration of China published a draft of its proposed Measures for the Security Review of Network Products and Services (the “Draft”). Under the Cybersecurity Law of China, if an operator of key information infrastructure purchases network products and services that may affect national security, a security review is required. The Draft provides further hints of how these security reviews may actually be carried out, and is open for comment until March 4, 2017.

On March 6 and 7, 2017, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) at Hunton & Williams LLP and over 100 public and private sector participants in CIPL’s GDPR Implementation Project will convene in Madrid, Spain, for CIPL’s third major GDPR implementation workshop.

As previously published on the Data Privacy Laws blog, Pablo A. Palazzi, partner at Buenos Aires law firm Allende & Brea, provides the following report.

Earlier this month, the Argentine Data Protection Agency (“DPA”) posted the first draft of a new data protection bill (the “Draft Bill”) on its website. Argentina’s current data protection bill was enacted in December 2000. Argentina was the first Latin American country to be recognized as an adequate country by the European Union.

On February 6, 2017, the House of Representatives suspended its rules and passed by voice vote H.R 387, the Email Privacy Act. As we previously reported, the Email Privacy Act amends the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA”) of 1986. In particular, the legislation would require government entities to obtain a warrant, based on probable cause, before accessing the content of any emails or electronic communications stored with third-party service providers, regardless of how long the communications have been held in electronic storage by such providers.

On February 6, 2017, the FTC announced that it has agreed to settle charges that VIZIO, Inc. (“VIZIO”), installed software on about 11 million consumer televisions to collect viewing data without consumers’ knowledge or consent. The stipulated federal court order requires VIZIO to pay $2.2 million to the FTC and New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs.