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The average American today generates more media than they did at any other point in history, and the ease with which our communications, photos, and videos are sent and stored digitally means most of us have more media stored in the cloud or on a single digital device than previous generations would have created in an entire lifetime. However, even as the amount of media we create and store has increased, the laws governing its search and seizure have failed to keep up. Under federal law and the laws of most states, the same information may be subject to different levels of protection from government authorities depending on whether that information is in the form of an e-mail stored in the cloud or a letter stored in a desk drawer.

California is attempting to change that equation. On October 8, 2015, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA, SB 178), a sweeping bill…

On September 27, 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law an amendment to California’s breach notification law (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.82).  Effective January 1, 2014, under the amended law, the definition of “Personal Information” will be expanded to include “a user name or email address, in combination with a password or security question and answer that would permit access to an online account.”  Additionally, new notification options have been added to address a breach of this type of information.…

As a growing number of states pass legislation which will protect individuals’ social media accounts from employer scrutiny, they have encountered a surprising adversary – FINRA and other securities regulators.

To date, at least six states have enacted social media employee privacy laws (which were blogged about here, here…

Ever on the forefront of consumer privacy protection, California is again making news in the privacy world with the California Attorney General’s recent publication of “Privacy on the Go: Recommendations for the Mobile Ecosystem,” which includes privacy recommendations for app developers, app platform providers, mobile ad networks, makers of operating systems and mobile carriers.  With this publication, California joins the FTC and the GSMA as entities that have published non-binding guidance with respect to mobile privacy (which we blogged about here and here, respectively).…

Earlier this year in United States v. Jones, the United State Supreme Court addressed the privacy implications of Global Positioning Systems (“GPS”), holding that placing a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s car was a “search” under the Fourth Amendment. Though a growing number of employers are using GPS systems to track employee activity on the job, the effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in the private sector remains unclear.…

The smart grid is an advanced metering infrastructure made up of “smart meters” capable of recording detailed and near-real time data on consumer electricity usage.  That data would then be sent to utilities through a wireless communications network.  In recent years, utilities have increased the pace of smart meter deployment—smart meters are expected to be on 65 million homes by 2015.  A smart grid could deliver electricity more efficiently and would enable consumers to track and adjust their energy usage in real time through a home display.  But these new capabilities also implicate new privacy concerns.…

On Wednesday, August 31, 2011, California became the third state this year to amend its existing security breach notification law when Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 24 (“SB 24”). SB 24’s specific changes, while far from sweeping, include the addition of content requirements for notice letters to individuals and a requirement to send a sample letter to the state’s attorney general if more than 500 people are affected by a breach. SB 24 won’t add much to most nationwide breach response plans, but will up the ante for those doing business primarily (or exclusively) in California.
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