Welcome to the Future!
A Dallas trial lawyer has filed suit in California against Toyota, Ford and GM because the vehicle’s software is easily hacked.
The suit claims:
Case No. 4:15-cv-01104-DMR
Do company executives breach their fiduciary duty by how they handle data security or in the methods of handling data breaches?
A lawfirm is investigating whether executives at Home Depot breached their fiduciary duty by failing to protect against the Home Depot data breach.
Data privacy is the new frontier for property rights. People fiercely want to protect their personal data. It gets tricky when the person trying to protect their data is a public school teacher.
A parent in Virginia sued to have teacher evaluations released.
The first court sided with the parent to allow for the release of teacher evaluations. The suit is on appeal. Teacher groups refer to the release of evaluations as an invasion of privacy. It’ll be fought to the Supreme Court and is a fight occurring around the country. Washington Post
A Portland Uber driver is the named plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against Uber for a 2014 data breach.
The breach disclosed personal information for 50,000 Uber drivers. The lawsuit alleges that Uber took 5 months to disclose the data breach, which violates California law. California statutes require employers to protect the personal information of employees.
Antman v. Uber Technologies Inc, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 15-1175.
Insurance Journal InAutoNews NYDailyNews Fortune via Reuters
The Federal Trade Commission issued a report saying its a bad idea to apply banking rules to retailers. 3 Reasons Why:
According to experts in Silicon Valley, data breach costs break down for business like this:
A glut of credit card and financial data on the black market has driven down its price. As a result, hackers are targeting more lucrative health care records.
Health care records are selling for as much as 7 times the value of financial data on the black market. Legal Intelligencer
1. More respect for financial institutions in courts. Data breaches lead to law suits. Law suits lead to multiple law suits. Multiple law suits become class action law suits. High dollar class action lawsuits are facing Target and Home Depot.
2. Push for national data breach legislation by multi-state companies.
3. More health care data breaches. Legal Intelligencer
Montana empowered its attorney general office by requiring that it receive notice of any qualifying data breach. The Montana Attorney General opertes a consumer protection division that will seek to help affected Montanans.
A student at the Univeristy of Oregon, Go Ducks!, alleges she was raped by 3 basketball players. The University found the sudents at fault and kicked them out of school and off the basketball team.
After the alleged rape, the student sought treatment at the student health center. Her treatment included mental health care.
She eventually sued the school as the alleged offenders were never tried for a crime. During the lawsuit her mental health records, when she sought care at the unveristy health care clinic, were accessed without her permission by the University.
The policy & legal question is does FERPA (Federal Education Privacy) trump HIPPA? The Feds say: “The Department of Education urges higher education institutions to not only comply with FERPA, but also to respect the expectation of confidentiality that all Americans hold when talking to a counselor or therapist.”