Monthly Archives: January 2009

Data Privacy and Security Meets Winnie-the-Pooh: Using Honey Pots to Protect Your Data

Most of us remember fondly the Winnie-the-Pooh stories by A.A. Milne from our childhood. One that is memorable for me is “Piglet Meets a Heffalump.” In that story, Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet plot to catch the new animal they believe is living in the Hundred Acre Wood. They have named this animal the Heffalump. They set a trap for the Heffalump, but instead of catching it, Pooh instead becomes trapped in the hole he had dug to catch the Heffalump. To add insult to injury,… More

FTC Says “Dumpster Wrong Place for Consumers’ Personal Information”

By Stacy Anderson and Gabriel M. Helmer.

Anyone required to comply with the FTC’s Disposal Rule [the text of the rule can be found here], which requires companies to take reasonable steps to dispose of information contained in consumer credit reports, should take note of a recent FTC enforcement action in federal court from the District of Nevada. On December 30, 2008, the FTC filed a complaint against Las Vegas businessman Gregory Navone alleging that he violated the Disposal Rule and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when he discarded forty boxes of documents into a public dumpster behind an office building in Las Vegas. … More

Do The Red Flags Regulations Apply to Me? — Understanding Whether You Are A “Creditor” Under Federal Law

If you are confused about whether you, your company or your clients are subject to federal identity theft regulations, you are not alone. When the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on October 22, 2008 that they were delaying enforcement of the new Red Flags regulations by six months, until May 1, 2009 (which we reported here and here), the FTC admitted that the primary reason for the delay was that many businesses,… More

Isn’t There Already A Federal Standard Governing Information Security? — Re-Examining the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act

By Stacy Anderson and Gabriel M. Helmer.

As an ever-increasing number of states enact legislation governing identity theft, customer data and personal information, pressure for clear federal legislation governing information security has mounted. For example, in December 2008, the FTC joined the growing number of voices calling on Congress to enact a legislation to create a single federal standard for the handling of personal information. (See our report here.) As we see movement towards a unifying federal standard,… More

Trends in Data Breach Incidents, Part 1: Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) Reports Breaches Up 47% in 2008, Hackers Only Responsible for 13.9% of All Incidents

On January 2, 2009, the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) released its report(.pdf) on data breaches in the United States in 2008 (you can read the Washington Post’s primer on the ITRC’s findings here). The raw numbers are headline grabbing — 656 data breaches in 2008, a 47% increase from 2007. The sharp increase in numbers from 2007 to 2008 could be a result of an increase in data breach incidents,… More

Senator Feinstein Introduces Two New Security/Privacy Bills

On January 6, 2009, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.) introduced two bills related to data breaches and protection of social security numbers. Bill S. 139, entitled the "Data Breach Notification Act," would require any federal agency or business entity to notify an individual of a security breach involving personal information “without unreasonable delay.” The proposed bill defines “reasonable delay” as including “any time necessary to determine the scope of the security breach,… More

FTC Chief Privacy Officer Mark Groman Presents At The Boston Bar Association

On Wednesday, January 14, 2009, the Boston Bar Association’s Privacy Law Committee hosted FTC Chief Privacy Officer Mark Groman for a brown bag lunch presentation entitled “The View from the Federal Trade Commission’s Chief Privacy Officer.” Here are a couple of highlights from the presentation:

  •  Mr. Groman views law firms as businesses subject to FTC Red Flags regulations (“we regulate you, too”), so law firms should be developing identity theft prevention programs to comply with the regulations by the May 1,…

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FTC Issues Guidance to Businesses on How To Handle Social Security Numbers

Anyone mystified by what practices the FTC wants businesses to improve on or abandon in response to federal “Red Flags” regulations received some specific guidance in December, when the FTC released the report Security in Numbers – SSNs and ID Theft. For anyone subject to new federal and state identity theft regulations, the Report helps identify some specific steps they should consider implementing by May 1, 2009, the deadline for businesses to adopt compliant identity theft prevention programs.