On June 22, 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it has settled charges that InMobi, a Singapore-based mobile advertising company, deceptively tracked the locations of hundreds of millions of consumers, including children, to
Continue Reading WSGR Alert: FTC Brings First Privacy Enforcement Action Against a Mobile Ad Network
Many businesses monitor or record customer service, telemarketing, and other telephone calls with consumers to help them improve customer service and for evidentiary reasons. Under federal and many state laws, calls may lawfully be monitored or recorded by businesses as long as those businesses have permission from their employees who participate on the calls. However, some states require the permission of everyone participating on a call before the call may legally be monitored or recorded. And some state laws potentially implicated by monitoring and recording calls are not clear as to what is required. California is one of those states.
Continue Reading Monitoring and Recording Consumers’ Calls in California Can Be a Risky Practice
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently issued guidance to help mobile application developers analyze whether the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) may apply to them.1 Not every mobile application developer that handles personal health information is subject to HIPAA regulation, and determining whether HIPAA applies is situation-dependent and requires thoughtful analysis. The HHS guidance lists some of the factors to consider when assessing whether HIPAA applies to an app developer and analyzes several scenarios where apps handle health-related information.
Continue Reading HHS Issues HIPAA Guidance for Mobile Health Apps
On April 14, 2016, the European Parliament formally adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). With this vote, the new EU data protection legal framework will become legally effective in two years and 20 days
Continue Reading WSGR Alert: New EU Data Protection Regulation Is Now Enacted
On April 13, 2016, the body of European Data Protection Authorities (DPAs)—the “Article 29 Working Party” (WP29)—issued its opinion on the new EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. The WP29 acknowledged that progress has been made with the
On February 29, 2016, the European Commission unveiled the text of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. The Privacy Shield is designed to replace the invalidated EU-U.S. Safe Harbor Framework and to provide a new legal framework
Continue Reading WSGR Alert: EU Commission Publishes EU-U.S. Privacy Shield