White & Case

Few days ago we talk about 5TH ANNUAL GLOBAL PRIVACY SYMPOSIUM hold in London in April, Presented by the White & Case LLP Global Privacy Practice Group.

For example Julia Barceló talk about the EU Data Protection transfer from Internal Market DG to Justice, Liberty And Security DG.

White & Case has just published another article originally appeared in the June 30, 2005 issue of New York Law Journal.

NEW DATA SECURITIES LAWS PUT COMPANIES AT RISK

June 30, 2005, New York Law Journal
Robert L. Raskopf , David Bender New York

From LexisNexis and Ameritrade to the FDIC and Boston College, the growing number of recent headlines announcing data security breaches ostensibly suggests a burgeoning problem. But in reality, the computer security industry's "dirty little secret" is that breaches have been occurring on a large-scale basis for many years. What has undoubtedly increased markedly is not the number of breaches, but rather the likelihood that a breach will be made public.

The force driving these disclosures is new data privacy laws in California and elsewhere that now, for the first time, prevent companies from keeping certain security breaches secret, and require them to notify individuals that the security of their personal information has been compromised. And the new laws allow (and many similar proposed laws would allow) government enforcers to impose stiff fines on companies that fail to handle disclosure properly or to take reasonable steps to protect personal data in the first place.1 Indeed, in some situations, failure to disclose a privacy breach might trigger liability under the securities laws, and even possibly spark an investigation by the SEC if, for example, management continued trading in a company's stock after knowing of the breach. And in practical terms, for some businesses the public relations ramifications of such a disclosure may dwarf the legal consequences. Full article at : White & Case