Digital Media and Data Privacy Law Blog

The past 20 months have created a lot of transitions in how people work. Some companies still have the majority of their employees working remotely and intend to keep it that way permanently. Other businesses have tried to come back fully in-person only to send workers home again as new variants emerge and COVID cases begin to rise again.

We have seen an increase in cybersecurity incidents with such a dispersed workforce. Changes in working conditions, home systems that are less secure, and the general stress we are all under as the pandemic drags on have all likely contributed.

A survey ... Read More 

The past 15 months have been extremely challenging for every industry, but that is especially true of educational institutions. Every level of education—from local school districts to the largest universities—has had to work to balance the safety of students, faculty and staff with their mission to provide high-quality education all the while knowing that every decision would be highly scrutinized and criticized. During this time of turmoil and uncertainty, many schools faced a challenge they were not expecting – a cyber attack.

Schools collect all sorts of personal and ... Read More 

As COVID-19 has spread throughout the world and within the United States, companies of all sizes have had to make quick decisions about how to implement work-from-home procedures. While many businesses are accustomed to having some of their employees work remotely at any given time, the sudden shift to a majority of the work force being away from controlled office networks and environments presents a unique and heightened set of technical and cybersecurity challenges.

To access the full article, click here.Read More 

A ruling by the highest court in the European Union regarding the common practice of putting a Facebook “Like” button on a website could have repercussions for American companies doing business overseas.

In late July, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that the owner of a website is jointly responsible, with Facebook, for any data that is shared with the social media giant by embedding a social media plugin, such as Facebook’s “Like” button. This means that websites must now get explicit permission to share information with social media sites and show they have a ... Read More 

When news of a major data breach, like the recent one at Capital One, makes headlines, the first response of many business owners may be to breathe a big sigh of relief that it wasn’t them. However, it’s critical that companies use these publicized breaches as a reminder to review their own systems and to see what lessons, if any, they can learn to improve their own data security.

In late July, Capital One announced that approximately 100 million people in the United States and approximately 6 million in Canada had been impacted when an individual gained unauthorized access to its ... Read More 

Brooks Pierce attorney Will Quick recently spoke to Raleigh television station WRAL about the intersection of privacy law and home surveillance technology, particularly doorbell cameras, used by private citizens.

While most people use these types of cameras legitimately to help protect their property, with any new technology there is a risk of misuse, whether intentional or not. Quick explained the use of home surveillance cameras is generally covered by well-established privacy law that holds that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in certain places.

The full ... Read More 

The contributors to Brooks Pierce’s Digital Media & Data Privacy Law comprise our firm’s digital media & data privacy practice group.

We have successfully represented broadcast and print clients in First Amendment and other media litigation in state and federal courts across the country. Our practice includes defending against libel, defamation, and privacy claims, prosecuting open meetings and public records actions, pursuing courtroom and court docket access cases and claims, resisting subpoenas directed to reporters and media organizations, and litigating ... Read More 

On Friday, Sept. 28, 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law first-in-the-nation legislation requiring that manufacturers include “reasonable security features” on any device that is “capable of connecting to the Internet”—commonly known as an “Internet of Things” (IoT) device.  California Assembly Bill 1906 and Senate Bill 327, which contain identical text, won’t go into effect until Jan. 1, 2020, but most manufacturers of IoT devices are going to need that lead time (if not more) to ensure the devices they put out into the market are compliant ... Read More 

Zounds, right?  But that is arguably what the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in Facebook v. Power Ventures, Inc. on July 12^th.  Let’s get to it.

Facts

Power Ventures and its CEO Steven Vachani operated a social network called Power.com. The concept was simple. People using other social networking sites could create a Power account to aggregate the user’s social networking information. The users could keep track of a variety of social networking friends through a single program and click through the central Power website to ... Read More 

When we last left David Nosal, he had escaped liability under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after convincing some of his former colleagues at executive search firm Korn/Ferry to use their log-in credentials to download source lists, names and contact information from a confidential database and transfer that information to Nosal.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that violating Korn/Ferry’s policy against disclosing confidential information did not amount to violations of the CFAA, and overturned his convictions under that law. 

But the government ... Read More