Data Security – Page 2 – Media Tech Law

License Plate Numbers: a valuable data-point in big-data retention

Posted August 6, 2015 by Rob Ellis 0

What can you get from a license plate number?

At first glance, a person’s license plate number may not be considered that valuable a piece of information. When tied to a formal Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) request it can yield the owner’s name, address, type of vehicle, vehicle identification number, and any lienholders associated with the vehicle. While this does reveal some sensitive information, such as a likely home address, there are generally easier ways to go about gathering that information. Furthermore, states have made efforts to protect such data, revealing owner information only to law enforcement officials or certified private investigators. The increasing use of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs), however, is proving to reveal a treasure trove of historical location information that is being used by law enforcement and private companies alike. Also, unlike historical MVA data, policies and regulations surrounding ALPRs are in their infancy and provide much lesser safeguards for protecting personal information.

ALPR – what is it?

Consisting of either a stationary or mobile-mounted camera, ALPRs use pattern recognition software to scan up to 1,800 license plates per minute, recording the time, date and location a particular car was encountered.

Website Policies and Terms: What You Lose if You Don’t Read Them

Posted July 15, 2015 by Roman Vayner 0

When was the last time you actually read the privacy policy or terms of use of your go-to social media website or you favorite app? If you’re a diligent internet user (like me), it might take you an average of 10 minutes to skim a privacy policy before clicking “ok” or “I agree.” But after you click “ok,” have you properly consented to all the ways in which your information may be used?

As consumers become more aware of how companies profit from the use of their personal information, the way a company discloses its data collection methods and obtains consent from its users becomes more important, both to the company and to users. Some critics even advocate voluntarily paying social media sites like Facebook in exchange for more control over how their personal information is used. In other examples, courts have scrutinized whether websites can protect themselves against claims that they misused users’ information, simply because they presented a privacy policy or terms of service to a consumer, and the user clicked “ok.”

The concept of “clickable consent” has gained more attention because of the cross-promotional nature of many leading websites and mobile apps.

PII at the Center of RadioShack Bankruptcy Auction and Mediation

Posted July 6, 2015 by Rob Ellis 0

A recent New York Times article highlights the disconnect between a company’s privacy policy and the disclosure of user data when the company is sold. According to the Times, while a company, like Hulu, declares that it “respects your privacy”, should the company go up for sale, user names, birth dates, email addresses and unique subscriber information can be made available to the highest bidder. Often it is this very information that can be of most value to a struggling or defunct company. This very issue played out recently with the bankruptcy of RadioShack, the electronics retail store founded in 1921, and the recent sale of its brand.

The now-bankrupt RadioShack reached a mediated agreement with U.S. states on May 14^thover the sale of customer data, which barred the transfer of personal customer information; limited the number of emails to be included in the sale; and provided opt-out mechanisms to customers prior to transfer.

New York-based Standard General purchased 1,750 RadioShack stores and trademark and intellectual property, out of bankruptcy. The sale included personal customer information provided by customers to RadioShack over many years, including email addresses, postal addresses and phone numbers.

Liability for Data Loss in the Cloud: Why No One Accepts Liability? Why Carve it Out?

Posted March 21, 2013 by Andrew Mirsky 0

Why is liability for data loss typically carved out or tightly limited in cloud service and IT outsourcing contracts? A common disclaimer in contracts for cloud services (and sometimes plain old IT outsourcing) runs like this:

You agree to take full responsibility for files and data transferred, and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on our servers. We will not be responsible for any data loss from your account. (From http://techtips.salon.com/liability-loss-data-under-hosting-agreement-2065.html (emphasis added))

What is the Liability from Data Loss?

First, what exactly is the liability – from data loss – that is being disclaimed? What is the risk? For that, we turn to Dan Eash writing in Salon’s “Tech Tips”:

Your site might be corrupted by hackers and spammers because your host didn’t properly secure the servers.
Your host might do weekly backups, but something goes wrong and you lose days of work.
You might have customers in a hosting reseller account who lose data because the host you bought the account from didn’t do regular backups.
You might even have an e-commerce site where new customers make daily purchases. If something goes wrong, how do you restore lost orders and customer details without a current backup?

I would add a 5th scenario: You just don’t know.

SaaS: Software License or Service Agreement? Start with Copyright

Posted July 16, 2012 by Andrew Mirsky 0

SaaS, short for “Software as a Service”, is a software delivery model that grants users access to a program while the software itself and its accompanying data are stored off-site, on a vendor’s (or another third party’s) servers. A user accesses the program via the internet, and the access is provided as a service. Hence … “Software as a Service”.

In terms of user interface functionality, a SaaS service – typically accessed via a subscription model – is identical to a traditional software model in which a user purchases (or more typically, licenses) a physical copy of the software for installation on and access via the user’s own computer. And in enterprise structures, the software is installed on an organization’s servers and accessed via dedicated “client” end machines, under one of many client-server setups. In that sense, SaaS is much like the traditional client-server enterprise model where servers in both cases will likely be offsite, the difference being that SaaS servers are owned and managed by the software owner. The “cloud” really just refers to the invisibility of the legal and operational relationship of the servers to the end user, since even in traditional client-server structures servers might very likely be offsite and accessed only via internet.

Privacy: Consent to Collecting Personal Information

Posted April 4, 2012 by Andrew Mirsky 0

Gonzalo Mon writes in Mashable that “Although various bills pending in Congress would require companies to get consent before collecting certain types of information, outside of COPPA, getting consent is not a uniformly applicable legal requirement yet. Nevertheless, there are some types of information (such as location-based data) for which getting consent may be a good idea. Moreover, it may be advisable to get consent at the point of collection when sensitive personal data is in play.”

First, what current requirements – laws, agency regulations and quasi-laws – require obtaining consent, even if not “uniformly applicable”?

1. Government Enforcement. The Federal Trade Commission’s November 2011 consent decree with Facebook user express consent to sharing of nonpublic user information that “materially exceeds” user’s privacy settings. The FTC was acting under its authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act against an “unfair and deceptive trade practice”, an authority the FTC has liberally used in enforcement actions involving not just claimed breaches of privacy policies but also data security cases involving managing of personal data without providing adequate security.

2. User Expectations Established by Actual Practice. The mobile space offers some of the most progressive (and aggressive) examples of privacy rights seemingly established by practice rather than stated policy. For example, on the PrivacyChoice blog, the CEO of PlaceIQ explained that “Apple and Android have already established user expectations about [obtaining] consent. Location-based services in the operating system provide very precise location information, but only through a user-consent framework built-in to the OS. This creates a baseline user expectation about consent for precise location targeting.” (emphasis added)

Privacy For Businesses: Any Actual Legal Obligations?

Posted March 19, 2012 by Andrew Mirsky 0

For businesses, is there an obligation in the United States to do anything more than simply have a privacy policy? The answer is not much of an obligation at all.

Put another way, is it simply a question of disclosure – so long as a business tells users what it intends to do with their personal information, can the business pretty much do anything it wants with personal information? This would be the privacy law equivalent of the “as long as I signal, I am allowed to cut anyone off” theory of driving.

Much high-profile enforcement (via the Federal Trade Commission and State Attorneys General) has definitely focused on breaches by businesses of their own privacy statements. Plus, state laws in California and elsewhere either require that companies have privacy policies or require what types of disclosures must be in those policies, but again focus on disclosure rather than mandating specific substantive actions that businesses must or must not take when using personal information.

As The Economist recently noted in its Schumpeter blog, “Europeans have long relied on governments to set policies to protect their privacy on the internet. America has taken a different tack, shunning detailed prescriptions for how companies should handle people’s data online and letting industries regulate themselves.” This structural (or lack of structural) approach to privacy regulation in the United States can also been seen – vividly – in legal and business commentary that met Google’s recent privacy overhaul. Despite howls of displeasure and the concerted voices of dozens of State Attorneys General, none of the complaints relied on any particular violations of law. Rather, arguments (by the AGs) are made about consumer expectations in advance of consumer advocacy, as in “[C]onsumers may be comfortable with Google knowing their search queries but not with it knowing their whereabouts, yet the new privacy policy appears to give them no choice in the matter, further invading their privacy.”

Again, there’s little reliance on codified law because, for better or worse, there is no relevant codified law to rely upon. Google, Twitter and Facebook have been famously the subjects of enforcement actions by the states and the Federal Trade Commission, and accordingly Google has been careful in its privacy rollout to provide extensive advance disclosures of its intentions.

As The Economist also reported, industry trade groups have stepped in with self-regulatory “best practices” for online advertising, search and data collection, as well as “do not track” initiatives including browser tools, while the Obama Administration last month announced a privacy “bill of rights” that it hopes to move in the current or, more realistically, a future Congress.

This also should not ignore common law rights of privacy invasion, such as the type of criminal charges successfully brought in New Jersey against the Rutgers student spying on his roommate. These rights are not new and for the time being remain the main source of consumer recourse for privacy violations in the absence of meaningful contract remedies (for breaches of privacy policies) and legislative remedies targeted to online transactions.

MediaTech Law

By MIRSKY & COMPANY, PLLC

PII at the Center of RadioShack Bankruptcy Auction and Mediation