Monthly Archives: March 2009

FTC Issues Red Flags Guidance

Posted on March 27, 2009 by Hunton & Williams LLP

On March 20, 2009, the Federal Trade Commission published a Red Flags Rule compliance guide for businesses, entitled “Fighting Fraud with the Red Flags Rule.” The guide offers an overview of the Rule and practical steps businesses need to take to comply. In addition, the guide addresses the issue that has raised the most concern among businesses — the Rule’s scope. As expected, the FTC is interpreting the Rule broadly, suggesting, for example, that any company that sells goods or services and bills customers later is a "creditor" subject to the Rule. According to the guide, “creditors” also may include retailers that merely “process” credit applications. Please visit our blog next week for a detailed analysis of the FTC’s guide. The guide is available here.

Proposed Bills Target Google Earth and Google Street View

Posted on March 26, 2009 by Hunton & Williams LLP

Google Earth and Google Street View, two popular applications offered by Google that enable users to view detailed satellite images of buildings or street-level panoramas of major roads and neighborhoods, have recently engendered controversy. In the United States, legislators in California and Texas have introduced bills directed at Google Earth and other similar applications. The proposed California bill prohibits operators of commercial Internet websites that make a “virtual globe browser available to members of the public” from providing “aerial or satellite photographs or imagery” of schools, religious facilities or government buildings, unless those images have been blurred. Violators could be fined at least $250,000 and natural persons who knowingly violate the provisions could face imprisonment between one to three years. The proposed Texas bill prohibits any person from publishing on the Internet “an image capable of zooming into greater detail than that of an aerial photograph taken without a magnifying lens 300 feet or higher of private property not visible from the public right-of-way,” and classifies the offense as a Class B misdemeanor, which is punishable by a fine up to $2,000 or 180 days in prison.

Tags: California, Google, Texas

Draft Bill to Require Disclosure of Online Behavioral Tracking

Posted on March 24, 2009 by Hunton & Williams LLP

Behavioral targeting on the Internet has recently come under the scrutiny of lawmakers and privacy advocates. This increased interest has been triggered in part by Facebook’s and Google’s recent adoption of targeted advertising practices. In response to growing concerns over behavioral tracking, three U.S. congressmen are preparing a draft bill that would mandate the disclosure of monitoring practices for advertising purposes. The goal of the bill is to increase transparency and provide individuals with the opportunity to learn what information is being collected about them, by whom and how the information will be used. At present, there are suggested best practices set forth in the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC’s”) Staff Report on Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising. These Self-Regulatory Principles are designed to encourage industry self regulation for the protection of consumer privacy in online advertising activities. The FTC is in the process of reviewing the privacy issues raised by online behavioral advertising over the course of the last decade. An FTC Town Hall meeting to address behavioral advertising practices was hosted in November 2007. In response to the comments received at the Town Hall meeting, the FTC issued Self-Regulatory Principles to promote industry self-regulation. If enacted, the proposed bill would frustrate industry’s nascent efforts to self-regulate in this area.

Tags: Facebook, Federal Trade Commission, Google

Article 29 Working Party Issues Opinion on Potential Updates to Standard Contractual Clauses to Facilitate Processor-to-Sub-Processor Transfers of Personal Data

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Hunton & Williams LLP

On March 17, the Article 29 Working Party released its Opinion 3/2009 (dated March 5) on standard contractual clauses for the transfer of personal data from data controllers in the EU to data processors outside the EU. The Opinion deals with proposed changes to the European Commission’s decision 2002/16 containing standard clauses for controller to processor transfers. The Opinion discusses proposals to update these clauses to accommodate data transfers to sub-processors, in light of increased global outsourcing. Although not mentioned in the Opinion, the March 17 Opinion is based on the proposal made in October 2006 to the European Commission by three business groups (the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union (AmCham EU) and the Federation of European Direct and Interactive Marketing (FEDMA)). Christopher Kuner, partner at Hunton & Williams, has been leading the ICC work. The proposal of the three business groups would amend the existing clauses from 2002 to bring them into line with business realities. The proposal is available here. Opinion 3/2009 is available here.

Tags: Article 29 Working Party, Data Controller, Data Processor, Data Transfer, European Commission, International Chamber of Commerce, Standard Contractual Clauses

US-Swiss Safe Harbor Framework in Force

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Hunton & Williams LLP

On February 16, 2009, the US-Swiss Safe Harbor Framework, which is comparable to the EU-US Safe Harbor Framework, was adopted. The US-Swiss framework is intended to simplify the transfer of personal data by Swiss companies to American companies that are self-certified with the US Department of Commerce (DOC). Self-certified US companies are bound by the principles contained in the framework. They will automatically be considered as providing an adequate level of data protection under Swiss law. To read more and for more EU data protection updates, please click here.

Tags: Department of Commerce, Safe Harbor

Belgian Criminal Court Fines Yahoo for Non-Disclosure of Personal Data to Public Prosecutor

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Hunton & Williams LLP

On 2 March 2009, a Belgian Criminal court (Tribunal correctionnel de Termonde, No. DE 20.95.16/08/25) fined Yahoo! Inc., €55,000 ($71,745) for refusing to disclose to a Belgian Public Prosecutor the personal data of its e-mail users who were under criminal investigation for fraud. The Criminal court also imposed a daily penalty fee of €10,000 ($13,045) in a case of non-compliance with the judgment. This decision was reached despite Yahoo!’s argument that Belgian law did not apply because the company does not maintain a legal entity in Belgium and does not store any customer data in Belgium.

Tags: Belgium, Criminal Law

Director of United States National Cybersecurity Center Resigns, Citing Obstacles

Posted on March 11, 2009 by Hunton & Williams LLP

Former Silicon Valley entrepreneur Rod Beckstrom has tendered his resignation from the post of Director of United States National Cybersecurity Center, effective March 13, 2009. In his resignation letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Mr. Beckstrom complained of inadequate funding and criticized the National Security Agency’s dominant role in “most national cyber efforts.” He characterized this arrangement as “bad strategy” because “intelligence culture is very different than a network operations or security culture,” and he argued that the centralization within one organization of all top-level government network security and monitoring constituted a significant threat to the democratic process. Mr. Beckstrom’s resignation letter is available here.

Tags: Cybersecurity, Department of Homeland Security

Dos and Don’ts of Data Breach and Information Security Policy

Posted on March 11, 2009 by Hunton & Williams LLP

The Federal Trade Commission, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development are hosting a multinational workshop on "Securing Personal Data in the Global Economy" in Washington, D.C. on March 16-17, 2009. In anticipation of that workshop, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership at Hunton & Williams LLP is releasing this white paper with ten key recommendations for data breach and information security policy, drawn from published research and extensive experience with data breaches, breach notices, and information security broadly.

Tags: APEC, OECD

ICO “dawn raid” uncovers covert database of construction workers

Posted on March 11, 2009 by Hunton & Williams LLP

The Information Commissioner’s Office (the “ICO”) has conducted a dawn raid on a business which operated a covert database containing details of 3,213 workers in the construction industry (the “Database”). Subscribers included over 40 construction companies, publicly named by the ICO, who used the database to vet prospective employees, without their knowledge or consent.

Tags: Data Protection Act

Privacy and Information Security Law Blog - Global privacy and information security law updates and analysis

Monthly Archives: March 2009

FTC Issues Red Flags Guidance

Proposed Bills Target Google Earth and Google Street View

Draft Bill to Require Disclosure of Online Behavioral Tracking

Article 29 Working Party Issues Opinion on Potential Updates to Standard Contractual Clauses to Facilitate Processor-to-Sub-Processor Transfers of Personal Data

US-Swiss Safe Harbor Framework in Force

Belgian Criminal Court Fines Yahoo for Non-Disclosure of Personal Data to Public Prosecutor

Director of United States National Cybersecurity Center Resigns, Citing Obstacles

Dos and Don’ts of Data Breach and Information Security Policy

ICO “dawn raid” uncovers covert database of construction workers

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