Balough
December 13, 2013
A law professor cannot force the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the Privacy Act to correct and to update files on him dating back to 1970 that include excerpts from his speeches that he alleges infringe on his First Amendment rights. The Seventh Circuit ruled that his files are within the FBI’s “law enforcement activity” […]
Balough
December 13, 2013
ChoicePoint, Inc.’s failure to protect consumers’ private data will cost it $15 million in fines and consumer redress under a settlement reached with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In 2005, ChoicePoint notified over 163,000 consumers that their private data, including social security numbers and date of birth, had been released by the company due to […]
Balough
December 13, 2013
An employer who knows or should know that an employee is viewing child pornographic sites on a company computer has an obligation to terminate or to discipline the employee and report the employee to law enforcement authorities. The issue arose in a case where a mother and her minor daughter sued the company where her […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
Lawyers are not financial institutions and therefore are not required to send privacy disclosure notices to clients under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the D.C. Circuit affirmed. The question of whether lawyers fall under the Act was raised by two bar associations after the Federal Trade Commission indicated that lawyers were not entitled to an exception under […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
A student who is openly gay at her high school has a right to privacy to keep that information from being given to her parents by the school’s principal, a federal court has found. The U.S. District Court in California rejected a motion to dismiss the privacy complaint brought by the student and her mother […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
Superior Mortgage Corp. wasn’t so superior in protecting consumers’ information online. The New Jersey company agreed to a consent order with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for alleged violations of the agency’s Standards for Safeguarding Customer Information Rule and security misrepresentations regarding the mortgage lender’s online practices. Superior conducts business through 40 branches in 10 […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
An appellate court has dramatically reduced the punitive damages award against anti-abortionists who maintained the Nuremberg Files website. The Ninth Circuit found that the original award of $108.5 million to doctors named on the site was beyond the constitutional limit and remitted damages to around $5 million. The defendants were found in 1999 to be […]
Balough
December 7, 2013
If you are throwing away any records or an old computer with consumer personal information, you must now take reasonable steps to ensure that the information is deleted or destroyed. Under Federal Trade Commission rules effective June 1, 2005, any business that maintains or possess consumer information must take reasonable measures to prevent unauthorized access […]
Balough
December 7, 2013
There is no need to authenticate emails using the internet protocol address, an Illinois appellate court has ruled. To the court, emails are no different than reply letters. The ruling came in a criminal case where a 22 year-old was found guilty of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a 16 year-old. The court found that […]
Balough
December 7, 2013
A crude and offensive letter from a prisoner to President Bush endorsing the actions of Bin Laden is protected speech, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The letter from a prison in the Oregon State Penitentiary contained the sentence “You Will Die too George W Bush real Soon They Promissed [sic] That you […]
