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Our State AG webinar series continues with Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and Chief of the Privacy Consumer Protection Section Michele Lucan. During our webinar, the Connecticut AG’s office described their structure and the tools available to them to enforce the state’s consumer protection laws. In particular, as the fifth state to pass comprehensive privacy legislation, AG Tong highlighted the AG office’s privacy priorities and agenda which we will focus on here in Part I. We will explore the more general consumer protection topics in Part II. In case you missed it, here is a recording of the webinar.  

While the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA – Connecticut’s UDAP law) is broad and robust, in the privacy and cybersecurity space, the AG has additional authority derived from specific state laws such as the Data Breach Notification law and Connecticut’s Data Privacy Act (CTDPA). General Tong noted Connecticut’s dedication to enforcing consumer protection, as it relates to privacy, traces back to at least 2011 when it was the first state to create the Privacy Task Force and eventually a standalone Privacy Section in 2015.

Enforcing the CTDPA

AG Tong noted that the CTDPA reflects a “philosophical judgment of Connecticut to return rights and power of authority to consumers regarding their Personal Information.” As we have previously reported, the CTDPA provides for several rights such as the right to access, right to portability, right to correct mistakes, right to deletion, and the right to opt out of targeted advertising, sale, and profiling of personal data. …

Continue Reading State AGs and Consumer Protection: What We Learned from . . . Connecticut Part I

Indiana’s Consumer Data Protection Act advanced in the state legislature last week and now heads to Governor Eric J. Holcomb’s desk.  The bill mirrors comprehensive privacy legislation enacted in Virginia, Utah, and Iowa, further extending the reach of privacy protections in the United States but without the complex mandates found in laws in California, Colorado, and Connecticut.  Following on the heels of Iowa’s Act Relating to Consumer Data Protection, Indiana’s law is expected to be the second state privacy law enacted this year, and the seventh comprehensive state privacy law overall.…

Continue Reading What’s in the Indiana Consumer Data Protection Act?

On February 16, 2023, the Attorneys General of Ohio and Pennsylvania announced a settlement with Ohio-based DNA Diagnostics Center (“DDC”) for a 2021 data breach which involved 2.1 million residents nationwide, including the social security numbers of over 45,000 Ohio and Pennsylvania residents. As a part of the settlement, which resolves alleged violations of Ohio and Pennsylvania consumer protection laws, DDC will pay $400,000 in fines and will be required to implement improved security practices.

DDC, one of the world’s largest private DNA testing companies, suffered the breach in November 2021. The breach involved databases that were not used for any active business purpose, but had been acquired by DDC as a part of a 2012 acquisition of Orchid Cellmark.  These databases contained the personal information of over 2 million individuals who received DNA testing services between 2004 and 2012, including names, payment information, and social security numbers. DDC claims it was unaware that this data was transferred as a part of its acquisition of Orchid. 

DDC allegedly received indications of suspicious activity in the database from a security vendor as early as May 2021, but did not activate its incident response plan until August 2021 after the vendor identified signs of malware. The malware was loaded onto DDC’s network by threat actors that ultimately facilitated the extraction of patient data, which was subsequently used to extort a payment from DDC in exchange for its promised deletion. In its internal investigation of the incident, DDC found that an unauthorized third party had logged in via VPN on May 24 using a DDC account, having harvested credentials from a domain controller that provided password information for each account in the network. The Assurance of Voluntary Compliance (“AOC”) noted that at the time the hacker accessed the VPN, DDC had recently migrated to a different VPN, meaning no one should have been using the VPN that the hackers used.  Furthermore, the AOD notes that the threat actor used a decommissioned server to exfiltrate the data.…

Continue Reading DNA Diagnostics Center Settles Data Breach with Ohio and Pennsylvania Attorneys General

The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC” or “Commission”) is seeking comments on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to refresh its customer proprietary network information (“CPNI”) data breach reporting requirements (the “Rule”).  Adopted earlier this month by a unanimous 4-0 vote of the Commission, the NPRM solicits comments on rule revisions that would expand the scope of notification obligations and accelerate the timeframe to notify customers after a data breach involving telephone call detail records and other CPNI.  The FCC cites “an increasing number of security breaches of customer information” in the telecommunications industry in recent years and the need to “keep pace with today’s challenges” and best practices that have emerged under other federal and state notification standards as reasons to update the Rule.

According to the current Rule, a “breach” means that a person “without authorization or exceeding authorization, has intentionally gained access to, used, or disclosed CPNI.”  As summarized in the NPRM, CPNI includes “phone numbers called by a consumer, the frequency, duration, and timing of such calls, the location of a mobile device when it is in active mode (i.e., able to signal its location to nearby network facilities), and any services purchased by the consumer, such as call waiting.”  (The NPRM does not propose any changes to the definition of CPNI.)…

Continue Reading FCC Seeks Comments on Updates to CPNI Breach Reporting Rule

Early this week, a coalition of 40 attorneys general obtained two multistate settlements with Experian concerning data breaches it experienced in 2012 and 2015 that compromised the personal information of millions of consumers nationwide. The 2012 breach investigation was co-led by the Massachusetts and Illinois AG offices, and the 2015 investigation was co-led by the AGs of Connecticut, DC, Illinois, and Maryland. An additional settlement was reached with T-Mobile in connection with the 2015 Experian breach, which impacted more than 15 million individuals who submitted credit applications with T-Mobile.

In an effort to change corporate behavior, both settlements require Experian and T-Mobile to enhance their data security practices and to pay a combined amount of more than $16 million. Experian has agreed to bolster its due diligence and data security practices by adhering to the following:…
Continue Reading AG Settlements Call for Stronger Data Security

Day in the Life of a Chief Privacy OfficerOn this special episode, Privacy and Information Security practice chair Alysa Hutnik chats with Shana Gillers, TransUnion’s Chief Privacy Officer. Alysa and Shana discuss the journey to becoming a chief privacy officer, hot topics, and what it takes to stay on top of your game in privacy today.

Watch a video version here or the…

Join Kelley Drye this week for:

Privacy Priorities for 2022: Legal and Tech Developments to Track and Tackle
Wednesday, January 26 at 4:00pm ET/ 1:00pm PT

Privacy compliance is a daunting task, particularly when the legal and tech landscape keeps shifting. Many companies are still updating their privacy compliance programs to address CCPA requirements, FTC warnings on avoiding dark patterns and unauthorized data sharing, and tech platform disclosure, consent, and data sharing changes. But in the not too distant future, new privacy laws in California, Colorado, and Virginia also will go into effect. Addressing these expanded obligations requires budget, prioritizing action items, and keeping up to date on privacy technology innovations that can help make some tasks more scalable.

This joint webinar with Kelley Drye’s Privacy Team and Ketch, a data control and programmatic privacy platform, will highlight key legal and self-regulatory developments to monitor, along with practical considerations for how to tackle these changes over the course of the year. This will be the first in a series of practical privacy webinars by Kelley Drye to help you keep up with key developments, ask questions, and suggest topics that you would like to see covered in greater depth.

Register Here

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Continue Reading Upcoming Webinars

In guidance released last week, the New York State Office of the Attorney General urged businesses to incorporate safeguards to detect and prevent credential-stuffing attacks in their data security programs.  The guidance stemmed from the AG’s finding that 1.1 million customer accounts at “well-known” companies appeared to have been compromised in credential-stuffing attacks.

Credential stuffing…

On November 17, the Senate Commerce Committee held its eagerly-awaited hearing on the nomination of Alvaro Bedoya, a data privacy academic from Georgetown Law, to be FTC Commissioner. Bedoya is slated to replace Rohit Chopra, who departed the agency last month to become Director of the CFPB, and Bedoya’s appointment would once again give the…

On September 29, 2021, the Senate Commerce Subcommittee held a hearing titled Protecting Consumer Privacy. The senators addressed the potential $1 billion earmarked to strengthen the FTC’s privacy work, the future of a federal privacy and data protection law, and a myriad of other privacy related topics such as children’s privacy.

Prepared Statements. In…