On March 31, 2016, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that proposed to establish new privacy guidelines for broadband Internet service providers (ISPs).1 The FCC designed the proposal to “ensure broadband customers have meaningful choice, greater transparency and strong security protections for their personal information collected by ISPs.”2 To accomplish this goal, the NPRM proposes to apply the privacy requirements of Section 222 of the Communications Act3 to ISPs that offer broadband Internet access service (or, in the NPRM’s terminology, “BIAS”).4 The FCC asserted that applying the privacy requirements set forth in Section 222 would “give broadband customers the tools they need to make informed decisions about how their information is used by their ISPs and whether and for what purposes [their information may be shared] with third parties.”5
Continue Reading ISPs Could Face New Privacy Regulations Under FCC Proposed Rulemaking
ISPs Could Face New Privacy Regulations Under FCC Proposed Rulemaking
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
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.
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.
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 
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