Monthly Archives: July 2013

Managed care company WellPoint Inc. has agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services $1.7 million to settle potential HIPAA Privacy and Security Rule violations committed in 2009 and 2010.   

As so often happens, HHS OCR began its investigation following a self-report of the breach by WellPoint.  That report “indicated that security weaknesses in an online application database left the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 612,402 individuals accessible to unauthorized individuals over the Internet.… More

In order to “keep up with technology,” the FTC revised the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) in 2012.  As a result of those revisions, some companies that may not have been covered by COPPA may now be covered, and the effective date of those changes is today, given the July 1st effective date of the revised COPPA Rule.  To streamline your response to these issues, the FTC has developed a six-step COPPA compliance guide:

Step 1: Determine if Your Company is a Website or Online Service that Collects Personal Information from Kids Under 13.… More

In the following article from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (reprinted with permission), Brian Bialas comments on the latest Computer Fraud and Abuse Act case, and the resultant split in the District of Massachusett on how to interpret the CFAA: 

Ex-employees sued over computer use
Judge narrowly construes CFAA

By Eric T. Berkman

A technology company could not sue former employees for downloading proprietary information onto personal storage devices before they joined a competitor without showing that the employees had physically accessed the information through fraudulent or unlawful means,… More