The New York Department of Financial Services cybersecurity regulation 23 NYCRR 500 (the “Regulation”) came into effect in March 2017 and established four staggered compliance deadlines for its various requirements.

By the third deadline of September 3, 2018, Covered Entities are required to be in compliance with sections 500.06 (audit trails), 500.08 (application security), 500.13 (limitations on data retention), 500.14(a) (training and monitoring), and 500.15 (encryption of nonpublic information).

Two months after Congress mandated notification for the breach of unsecured protected health information (PHI), the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) defined what it means to be “unsecured.” As required by Section 13402 of the HITECH Act, H.R. 1, 111th Cong. (1st Sess. 2009) (which was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009), the Secretary issued guidance and a request for comments on the technologies and methodologies rendering information unusable, unreadable or indecipherable. 74 Fed. Reg. 19006 (Apr. 27, 2009) (to be codified at 45 C.F.R. pts. 160, 164).

On October 9, in the case R v. S and A [2008] EWCA Crim 2177, the Criminal Division of the England and Wales Court of Appeal held that requiring criminal defendants to disclose an encryption key allegedly protecting criminal materials does not violate the privilege against self-incrimination under U.K. law or Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights.  The U.K. court’s ruling is at odds with Magistrate Judge Jerome J. Niedermeier’s ruling on a similar issue in the District of Vermont, In re Boucher, No. 06-mj-91, 2007 WL 4246473 (D. Vt. Nov. 29, 2007).

A Nevada law requiring encryption of customer personal information goes into effect on October 1, 2008. See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 597.970 (2007). While the legislation is short in length, it is potentially wide-ranging in scope. In particular, the legislation requires any “business in this State” to encrypt an electronic transmission (other than via facsimile) of “any personal information of a customer” to “a person outside of the secure system of the business unless the business uses encryption to ensure the security of the electronic transmission.” Id.