Our Insights on eDiscovery

We have covered Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) over several posts the past couple of years and even conducted a webcast on the topic last year. And, we have covered the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) several times as well, including as recently as last week. But, what about the rest of the wide, wide world? Do countries in other parts of the world have data privacy policies as well? Yes. Do they mimic GDPR policies? Not necessarily.

When I spoke at the University of Florida E-Discovery Conference last month, there was a question from the live stream audience about a lawyer’s duty to disclose a data breach within his or her law firm. I referenced the fact that all 50 states (plus DC, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands) have security breach notification laws, but I was not aware of any specific guidelines or opinions relating to a lawyer’s duty regarding data breach notification. Thanks to an article I came across last week, I now know that there was a recent ABA opinion on the topic.

As we discussed last year, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a comprehensive new consumer protection law set to take effect next January 1. And, as we also reported recently, about half of surveyed companies haven’t even started preparing to be CCPA compliant. Maybe that’s because they don’t know where to start to comply and don’t know whether the CCPA applies to their business, what rights will Californians have under CCPA and what impact CCPA will have on their privacy policy. Here are answers to some of those questions.

Years ago, there was a TV commercial for chili where the spokesman said “Neighbors, how long has it been since you’ve had a big thick steaming bowl of Wolf brand chili? Well, that’s too long.” It’s been too long since we’ve provided an update of M&A+I activities in eDiscovery, so let’s fix that. Also, I’ve had a lot of questions recently about what’s going on with the products that CloudNine acquired a year ago, so let’s provide an update on that as well.

When it comes to data breaches and other cybersecurity threats, many people discuss the threats from outside hackers. But, it’s the internal employees who can do as much, if not a lot more, damage to an organization’s IT infrastructure. Especially if the internal employee has been canned and is bent on getting revenge.