Cybersecurity

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On March 27, 2019, journalists affiliated with Reuters reported that the Kunlun Group (“Kunlun”), a China-based tech firm, was preparing to sell its wholly owned subsidiary, Grindr, after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) informed the group that Kunlun’s continued ownership of Grindr constituted a national security risk.  This forced divestiture of Grindr is a pointed reminder that CFIUS remains focused on protecting the sensitive personal data of U.S. citizens, has the power to upend closed deals that have not been cleared by the committee, and is dedicating increased resources to the review of transactions that are not notified to CFIUS.…
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On Friday, March 15, 2019, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued its 2018 Privacy & Data Security Update (the “Update”) detailing its activities last year in seven “zones” of privacy and data security: enforcement, advocacy, rules, workshops, reports and surveys, consumer education and business guidance, and international engagement. …
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On January 24 2019, Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (“OSFI”) released an Advisory detailing new requirements for Canadian federally regulated financial institutions (“FRFIs”) to report cyber incidents within 72 hours.  FRFIs include banks, trust companies, loan companies, life insurance companies, property and casualty insurance companies, and fraternal benefit societies.

The new reporting requirements become effective on March 31, 2019.…
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On February 7, 2019, the German antitrust agency, the Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”), imposed limitations on Facebook’s current practice of collecting and processing user data and prohibited using the related terms of service.  After an almost three-year long investigation, the FCO found that some of Facebook’s business practices amounted to an abuse of a dominant position.  For the first time, the FCO based its abuse-of-dominance analysis also on whether the dominant company complied with the GDPR – throwing compliance with the GDPR into their competition law assessment.[1]…
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At the end of January, partners Daniel Ilan and Alexis Collins participated in a panel co-hosted by The Conference Board and Cleary Gottlieb to discuss cybersecurity and board oversight.

Moderator Doug Chia, executive director of The Conference Board, Nick Mankovich, Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer (“CISO”) at medical technology firm Becton Dickinson, Daniel, and Alexis discussed current cybersecurity risks, how cyber-attacks are changing, and the role that management and the board should play in ensuring that companies are prepared.…
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In 2018, data privacy and cyber breaches made headlines throughout the year.

Major companies continued to suffer data breaches, highlighting the risks and potential costs of cyber incidents across industries.  At the same time, a growing and overlapping thicket of data security and privacy regulations—within the U.S., European Union, Latin America, and elsewhere—continued to increase…

Nearly a decade ago, WikiLeaks ushered in the age of mass leaks.  Since then, corporations, governments, public figures and private entities have increasingly had to reckon with a new reality: that vigilantes, activists, extortionists and even state actors can silently steal and rapidly disseminate proprietary information, including customer data and other sensitive information.  Last month, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) indicted four individuals based on information first revealed in the “Panama Papers” leak.  This marks a significant milestone in law enforcement’s reliance on evidence based on an unauthorized mass leak of information.  While leaks and hacks are not a novel phenomenon—in 1971, the New York Times published top secret documents on the Vietnam War and, in 1994, a paralegal leaked tobacco industry documents that ultimately cost the industry billions of dollars in litigation and settlement costs—the frequency, scale and ease of dissemination of leaked information today presents a difference not only of degree, but of kind.  The new Panama Papers-based criminal case will likely raise a host of novel legal issues based on legal challenges to the DOJ’s reliance on information illegally obtained by a third party, as well as information that would ordinarily be protected by the attorney-client privilege.  In this memorandum, we discuss the potential issues raised by the prosecution and their implications.
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On January 7, 2019 the National Futures Association (“NFA”) provided additional guidance on the required cybersecurity practices of certain NFA members by amending its Interpretive Notice entitled NFA Compliance Rules 2-9, 2-36 and 2-49: Information Systems Security Programs (the “Interpretive Notice”).  The Interpretive Notice currently requires each NFA member futures commission merchant (“FCM”), commodity trading advisor, commodity pool operator, introducing broker (“IB”), retail foreign exchange dealer, swap dealer (“SD”) and major swap participant to implement a written information systems security program (“ISSP”) and enact other cybersecurity procedures sufficient to identify, address and respond to cybersecurity incidents.  The amendments to the Interpretive Notice are informed by NFA examinations of member ISSPs since the Interpretive Notice became effective in March 2016.  They are intended to clarify certain common questions posed by NFA members related to internal approvals of the ISSP and employee training.  The amendments additionally impose a new notification requirement for specified cybersecurity incidents.…
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The European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”)[1] adopted its highly anticipated guidelines on the territorial scope of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) (the “Guidelines”), which are currently open for public consultation until January 18, 2019.

The extraterritorial application of the GDPR to entities located in non-EU countries marks a significant shift in the legal framework compared to the GDPR’s predecessor (Directive 95/46/EC).

The GDPR’s extraterritorial scope is based on two main criteria described in its Article 3:

  • the “establishment” criterion, according to which the GDPR applies where processing of personal data is undertaken by a person in the context of the activities of an establishment in the European Union regardless of whether the processing takes place in the European Union or not, and
  • the “targeting” criterion, according to which the GDPR applies where processing activities conducted by a person established outside the European Union relate to the offering of goods or services or the monitoring of behavior of data subjects in the European Union.

As a result of these two criteria, businesses which did not previously need to consider the applicability of EU data protection law to their processing activities may now be caught within the GDPR’s territorial scope. The Guidelines  are intended to bring clarity to non-EU businesses doing business with the EU, either directly or through “establishments”, which must undertake a careful assessment of their data processing activities in order to determine whether the GDPR applies. The full text of the Guidelines can be accessed here and their key features are summarized below.…
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On November 21, 2018, in Dittman v. UPMC d/b/a The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that an employer has a legal duty to exercise reasonable care to safeguard its employees’ sensitive personal information stored on an internet-accessible computer.[1] Dittman is notable because it is the first time a state’s highest court has broadly held that a company owes a duty to its employees to protect their personal data that it collects and stores. Also, by rejecting the economic loss doctrine, the court opened the door to the potential recovery of pecuniary damages in data breach cases alleging a negligence theory. If the holding of Dittman is adopted by courts in other states, employers could face increased risk of financial liability following a data breach that compromises personal information of employees.…
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