Cory L. Andrews of Washington Legal Foundation has an OpEd that begins: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has developed a well-known penchant for using individually negotiated settlement agreements and consent decrees to announce for the first time what qualifies as “unfair” or “deceptive” conduct under the FTC Act. In the data-privacy arena, FTC views these…
Category: U.S.
How Life in 123 Million American Households Was Exposed Online
Dan O’Sullivan reports: In another blow to consumer privacy, the UpGuard Cyber Risk Team can now reveal that a cloud-based data repository containing data from Alteryx, a California-based data analytics firm, was left publicly exposed, revealing massive amounts of sensitive personal information for 123 million American households. Exposed within the repository are massive data sets…
(Another) Federal Data Breach Notification Law Introduced in Congress
Gregory Bautista, Jeremy T. Merkel, and Alex Moh of Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP write: Senate Democrats have introduced a third iteration of a federal data breach notification bill, the Data Security and Breach Notification Act of 2017 (S.B. 2179). If passed into law, this bill would replace the patchwork of 48 separate state breach notification…
Air Force Hackers Earn Biggest Government Bug Bounty Ever
Kate Conger reports: A pair of hackers discovered a vulnerability in Air Force software that allowed them to gain access to the Department of Defense’s unclassified network—a find that earned them more than $10,000, the largest payout ever in a government bug bounty program. Read more on Gizmodo.
Former hotel clerk arrested for profiting from guests’ info
KTBS reports: A former hotel clerk was arrested for using information obtained through his job to fraudulently rent rooms and receive food deliveries, said Sheriff Steve Prator. Between April and June 2017, Delvin Darrell Raphiel, 28, used a childhood friend’s personal information to set up a hotel honors account through which he reserved rooms at…
LabMD Appeal Has Privacy World Waiting
Craig A. Newman writes: It is the case that could define the scope of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s authority in data security. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit heard argument six months ago in LabMD, Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission. As readers of this blog know, the case turns on what…