On December 4, 2017, the SEC Enforcement Division’s new Cyber Unit filed its first enforcement case for a fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO). This new specialty unit was established in late September to increase the Enforcement Division’s focus on cyber-related securities law violations. The focus areas of this unit include securities laws violations involving “blockchain” technologies and ICOs.
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Author: Discerning Data Editorial Board
Agenda and Panelists Announced for FTC’s Information Injury Workshop in December
The Federal Trade Commission released the agenda and panelists for the Information Injury Workshop which will be held on December 12.
As we covered in a previous DBR on Data post, the goal of the workshop is to explore how to characterize information injuries, how to accurately measure such injuries, and their prevalence. In addition, panelists will discuss what factors businesses and consumers consider when evaluating the tradeoffs between providing information and potential exposure to injuries.
The panelists come from a variety of fields and disciplines, including information technology, privacy and data security, business, academia, legal and nonprofit fields.
The full agenda and list of panelists is available at this link. The workshop is free and open to the public and will also be available via live webcast through the FTC’s website.
Human Rights Watch Denounces China’s Big Data Policing
An international human rights organization is urging the Chinese government to stop building big data policing technologies that aggregate and analyze citizens’ personal information. Though governments collecting information about its citizens is not new, China has begun pursuing newer and ambitious technologies, such as big data analytics, facial recognition, and cloud computing, to better and more quickly aggregate, mine, and leverage personal information.
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California’s First 2017 Health Care Data Breach Enforcement Results in $2 Million Settlement
Cottage Health System has settled a state enforcement action over two separate data breaches that made more than 50,000 patients’ medical information publicly available online. The no-fault settlement requires Cottage Health System to:
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FDA Approves First Digital Pill
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the country’s first drug with a digital ingestion tracking system.
Abilify MyCite is a pill that digitally tracks whether patients have taken the medication. The pill contains a sensor that, once ingested, sends a message to a patient’s wearable patch, which then transmits the information to a smartphone application. This voluntary process allows patients, caregivers, and physicians to track this information through a web-based portal if the patient has given consent. Experts believe that such digital devices could have a positive impact on public health by addressing a longstanding problem; in this case, that patients do not take their medicines as prescribed.
A Bipartisan Effort to Focus on Healthcare Cybersecurity
House Energy and Commerce Committee members Reps. Billy Long (R-Mo.) and Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) introduced the HHS Cybersecurity Modernization Act earlier this month in a bipartisan effort to address cybersecurity threats to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Representatives Long and Matsui have both described the bill, H.R. 4191, as a stepping-stone towards improving cybersecurity at HHS and the health care industry at large. However, the bill does not authorize any additional appropriations to do so.
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