Online Privacy

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Key Takeaways:

  • Ed tech company PowerSchool’s recent breach exposed the data of approximately 60 million students and 10 million educators.
  • Hacker gained access via a compromised employee password and remained undetected for nine days.
  • Sensitive personal data, including Social Security numbers and medical histories, was potentially compromised, raising a number of legal and regulatory concerns.
  • The breach underscores the urgent need for stronger third-party oversight and security requirements.

On August 29, 2024, the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS-OCR”) withdrew its appeal of an order by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas’ (“District Court”) declaring unlawful and vacating a portion of an HHS-OCR Bulletin…

A federal judge in the Northern District of California delivered a blow to a potential class action lawsuit against Google over its ad auction practices. The lawsuit, which allegedly involved tens of millions of Google account holders, claimed Google’s practices in its real-time bidding (RTB) auctions violated users’ privacy rights. But U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers declined to certify the class of consumers, pointing to deficiencies in the plaintiffs’ proposed class definition. 

On December 1, 2022, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Bulletin to highlight the obligations of HIPAA-covered entities and business associates when using “online tracking technologies,” or what OCR describes as “script or code on a website or mobile…

During a much anticipated Open Commission Meeting announced by Commission Chair Lina M. Khan, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) voted in favor of issuing one new policy statement and one new report to Congress.

First, the Commission unanimously voted in favor of issuing a policy statement on FTC initiatives…

The California Privacy Protection Agency (the “Agency”) released draft regulations to the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”) on May 31, 2022 (the “Proposed Regulations”). The Proposed Regulations are drafted as comments to the California Attorney General’s regulations for the California Consumer Privacy Act, California’s landmark privacy law, which was amended…

We previously reported on the FCC’s 2016 Privacy Order, “Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services” impacting Internet service providers’ data privacy practices and obligations and the corresponding timeline for compliance. Intervening events, however, have made the rules imposed by the 2016 Privacy Order moot. On June 26, 2017, the FCC adopted a new order providing guidance on reinstating the pre-2016 Privacy Order regulations. This order was issued pursuant to a joint resolution of Congress under the Congressional Review Act, signed by the President on April 3, 2017, disapproving the FCC’s 2016 Privacy Order. As a result, the 2016 Privacy Order has “no force or effect.” FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, stated that the purpose of the new order is to “simply make clear that the privacy rules that were in effect prior to 2016 are once again effective.”