HHS-OCR’s Response to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma

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HHS-OCR issued a limited waiver of HIPAA Sanctions and Penalties Notice for both Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. In late August and early September, Secretary Price declared Public Health Emergencies in Texas, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Florida and President Trump shortly followed suit with emergency declarations for both hurricanes, as well. Since both President Trump and Secretary Price declared an emergency for Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, the Secretary of HHS may waive sanctions and penalties against a covered hospital that does not comply with certain provisions of the HIPAA Privacy Rule.

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Online Tax Preparation Service Settles with FTC for GLBA Violations

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The FTC reached a settlement  with online tax preparation service TaxSlayer Online for allegedly violating the Gramm Leach Bliley Act’s (“GLBA”) Privacy Rule and Regulation P as well as the Safeguards Rule.

The Privacy Rule/Regulation P requires financial institutions to provide initial and annual notices to their customers informing them about what nonpublic personal information is shared with third parties. It also provides information about how consumers can opt out of certain information sharing.  Both the FTC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enforce the Privacy Rule.

The Safeguards Rule requires financial institutions to use reasonable procedures to safeguard their customers’ nonpublic information. The FTC enforces the Safeguards Rule.

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Cybersecurity and Adware: The FTC’s Settlement with Lenovo

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The FTC and 32 state attorneys general announced a settlement with Lenovo Inc., one of the largest computer manufacturers, resolving allegations that Lenovo harmed consumers by pre-loading software on some laptops that compromised security protections in order to deliver ads to consumers.

The FTC’s complaint alleged that in August 2014 Lenovo began selling consumer laptops that came with preinstalled ad-injecting software known as VisualDiscovery, which was developed by Superfish, Inc.  This adware delivered pop-up ads of similar-looking products sold by Superfish’s retail partners whenever a consumer’s cursor hovered over the image of a product on a shopping website. To facilitate its injection of pop-up ads into encrypted https:// websites, Visual Discovery installed a self-signed root certificate in the laptop’s operating system, which caused consumers’ browsers to automatically trust the VisualDiscovery-signed certificates.  Digital certificates are part of the Transport Layer Security protocol that, when properly validated, serve as proof that consumers are communicating with the authentic https:// website and not an imposter.

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Logging Your First Information Governance Success

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This is the first in an occasional series of blog posts providing practical guidance on how to create an information governance program and how successfully to execute on specific information governance projects.

One of the most common questions we hear from organizations about information governance is “How can we get started?”  We often counsel clients that the best way to get started is to look for a quick-win opportunity where information governance can add value.  Even a small project can serve as a catalyst to organically spur and mature information governance.

As part of its ongoing case study series, the Information Governance Initiative (IGI) recently profiled one of the largest retailers and distributors of tires and automobile parts in the United States.  Like most organizations, this company had legacy, digital data in departmental shared drives that it wanted to manage better.

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Webinar Series: Preparing for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

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The new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the EU’s most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years, replacing the 1995 Data Protection Directive.

In our ongoing series of GDPR-focused webinars, we guide attendees through the (GDPR) provisions, which will take effect on May 25, 2018 for all companies conducting business with EU citizens.

With the deadline for compliance quickly approaching, these sessions provide practical, detailed advice on preparations, as well as developments related to GDPR compliance preparations. We have included links to each of these sessions and a summary of what was covered below.

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Death, Taxes and Cybersecurity

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If Ben Franklin were alive today, he would add cybersecurity to his famous quote “…in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”  Cybersecurity is top of mind in every organization in part because of the recent massive ransomware attacks, new federal and state regulations (including the New York Division of Financial Services’ Cybersecurity Regulation) and the upcoming effective date of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).  There is no one-size-fits-all solution for organizations that want to shore up their cybersecurity vulnerabilities, but there are a lot of useful reports and advice from federal government agencies.

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