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Today, the Florida House of Representatives Commerce Committee voted unanimously to allow HB 969, which would be the most aggressive privacy law in the country, to move forward for a full House floor vote. This post explains what happened, what will happen next, and some of the unique political forces and considerations behind HB 969.    …
Continue Reading Have Privacy Advocates Found A New Path Forward in Red States?

Yesterday, the Governor of Florida threw his support behind a newly introduced consumer data privacy bill (HB 969) which is very similar to the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. The Governor’s support is a significant development given that he and both chambers of the Florida Legislature are Republican and, to date, there has not been any aligned support for a privacy law since the Florida Information Protection Act (FIPA), Florida’s data breach notification law.  Nevertheless, as with the CCPA, the bill proposes a boondoggle for the plaintiffs’ bar in the form of a private right of action for data breaches and statutory damages, which could present a significant obstacle to passage in the bill’s current form, particularly for a fairly business-friendly Florida Legislature.
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Continue Reading Florida Throws Its Hat Into the Privacy Ring, And It’s Looking A Lot Like California

Yesterday, in a 26-page opinion, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has weighed in on two important questions in the world of privacy and data breach litigation.  First, does a plaintiff have standing where he was exposed to a substantial risk of future identity theft, even though there was no misuse of his information. The court’s answer is no. Second, what efforts to mitigate this risk does a plaintiff need to undertake to meet the standing requirement.  Here, the court held that the plaintiff essentially manufactured his own injuries (wasted time, lost use of his preferred card, and lost credit card benefits) by voluntarily canceling his credit card, which is not enough to confer standing.
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Continue Reading The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Weighs in on Data Breach Standing Issues

Earlier this year, Bloomberg Law reported that Edelson PC, a leading plaintiffs’ firm in privacy and data security law, filed a class action lawsuit against a regional law firm that had vulnerabilities in its information security systems.  This week, the identity of the firm and the allegations of the lawsuit were unsealed.  The case,…

The SEC recently agreed to a $1,000,000 settlement of an enforcement action against Morgan Stanley for its failure to have sufficient data security policies and procedures to protect customer data. The settlement was significant for its amount. The true noteworthiness here, however, lies not in the end result but the implications of how it was…

My last post described what the recently passed Florida Information Protection Act (FIPA) will do.  This post analyzes how FIPA differs from Florida’s existing breach notification law and explains why those differences will hurt or help companies that maintain information about Florida residents.  Florida’s Governor must still sign the FIPA into law, but his signature…