Jason C. Gavejian and B. Tyler Philippi write: The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided to hear a case brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) to determine whether individual consumers have standing to sue a consumer reporting agency for statutory violations of the FCRA when no “actual damages” were suffered by the consumer. The FCRA, like other privacy laws,…
Category: Federal
Three men associated with Anonymous Australia facing jail time: Part 1
Three men affiliated with Anonymous Australia are facing jail time: one for incitement, and two for serious hacking charges that could send each man to prison for many years. DataBreaches.net started looking into all three cases and how the men’s paths crossed. In this post, we provide some background and details on one of the cases. Future posts will…
Senator Leahy introduces Consumer Privacy Protection Act; federal data breach notification law
Eric Chabrow reports: Privacy advocates in the Senate have unveiled a national data breach notification bill that would allow states to keep their own laws if they provide more stringent reporting and privacy protections than offered by the federal government. The Consumer Privacy Protection Act, introduced April 30, is sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont…
‘Aaron’s Law’ focuses penalties on malicious hackers
Cory Bennett reports: Aaron’s Law is back in Congress. Named for Aaron Swartz — the programmer and digital activist who took his life while facing data theft charges — the bill would ease punishments stemming from the law under which Swartz was charged, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) is backing…
At long last, Congress passes law to strip Social Security numbers from Medicare cards
Robert Pear reports that although the federal government already prohibits private insurers using Social Security numbers on insurance cards when they provide benefits under contract with Medicare, Medicare itself has continued to issue new Medicare cards with Social Security numbers imprinted on them. And as anyone who hasn’t been asleep through the past decade knows, that’s been a recipe…
New bill would protect security research hacking
Cory Bennett reports: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) introduced a bill Thursday that would exempt responsible hacking from prosecution under existing copyright law. The security and academic community has long worried they could face legal action for basic research, which often involves examining computer networks in a way that may technically run afoul…