The Fourth Circuit recently held that universities could be liable for Title IX violations if they fail to adequately respond to harassment that occurs through anonymous-messaging apps....more
Just days after the summit between the U.S. and North Korea, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about a malicious malware, a Trojan malware variant known as...more
6/26/2018
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) ,
Connected Cars ,
Critical Infrastructure Sectors ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cyber Crimes ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Collection ,
Data-Sharing ,
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ,
Drones ,
Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
FBI ,
FCC ,
FERPA ,
Hackers ,
HIPAA Breach ,
Information Technology ,
Malware ,
OCR ,
Risk Management
As the myriad of FERPA interpretation issues continues to cloud many educators’ understanding of what is permissible and not permissible under the statute, some assistance was recently provided by the U.S. Department of...more
U.S. Estimates that Cyber Hacks Cost Up to $109 Billion in 20 -
The Council for Economic Advisors (CEA) issued a report this month, entitled “The Cost of Malicious Cyber Activity to the U.S. Economy,” which concludes that...more
2/26/2018
/ Banking Sector ,
Bitcoin ,
Class Action ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Protection ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Digital Currency ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Drones ,
Federal Agency Taskforce ,
Hackers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Malware ,
OCR ,
PHI ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
TCPA ,
Virtual Currency
On January 30, 2018, EDUCAUSE, a higher education technology association, submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Education describing concerns that it had with the Federal Student Aid (“FSA”) ability to protect federal...more
The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division (Department) issued a Memo dated January 10, 2018 (Granston Memo), directing Department of Justice attorneys to more seriously consider dismissing False Claims Act (FCA) cases...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), one of the watchdogs of the financial services industry, has announced through Acting Director Mick Mulvaney that it will no longer collect personal information of consumers...more
12/8/2017
/ Carpenter v US ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Cybersecurity ,
Darknet ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Security ,
Drones ,
Emergency Response ,
FCC ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Fourth Amendment ,
Identity Theft ,
Internet ,
Location Data ,
Net Neutrality ,
NYDFS ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Popular ,
Risk Management ,
SCOTUS ,
Unmanned Aircraft Systems
Last Thursday, the United States Supreme Court heard argument in Carpenter v. United States. At issue was whether the FBI violated the Fourth Amendment when it obtained the cellphone location records of the Timothy...more
12/6/2017
/ Carpenter v US ,
Cell Phones ,
Criminal Investigations ,
Data Collection ,
Electronically Stored Information ,
Fourth Amendment ,
Location Data ,
Pending Litigation ,
Reasonable Expectation of Privacy ,
Riley v California ,
SCOTUS
Stating the obvious, college is one of the most important and expensive investments Americans make. In addition to tuition costs, from a consumer perspective, other factors should be important in deciding on a college,...more
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has signed into law the Cyber Civilian Corps Act, which established the Michigan Cyber Civilian Corps, dubbed MiC3. The corps has been in existence for three years but not statutorily deployed. ...more
11/10/2017
/ Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Protection ,
Data-Sharing ,
Drones ,
Drug & Alcohol Abuse ,
Elder Issues ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Hackers ,
Health Care Providers ,
HIPAA Breach ,
Malware ,
Opioid ,
Pain Management ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
PHI ,
Ransomware ,
State Data Breach Notification Statutes ,
Unmanned Aircraft Systems
The Connecticut State Department of Education (DOE) recently published guidance on implementing civil rights protections for transgender students. The guidance, in part, provides information on issues related to requests that...more
Last month, Southern Oregon University (SOU) announced that it was the victim of a $1.9 million phishing scheme. SOU received an email purportedly from their contractor, Anderson Construction, requesting the April payment for...more
On May 9, 2017, the Illinois Appellate Court held that the College of Du Page Foundation (Foundation), a fundraising organization for the public College of Du Page (College), is subject to the state’s open records law. In...more
On April 13, 2017, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published Spying on Students, a report detailing its investigation into school-issued devices and student privacy. EFF found that parents were overwhelmingly not...more
On Thursday, Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) Commissioner John Koskinen testified that the personal data of up to a 100,000 taxpayers could have been compromised as a result of criminal use of the Free Application for...more
Last week, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Student Aid (FSA) announced that the Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) on fafsa.gov and StudentLoans.gov will be unavailable until extra security protections could be added....more
On February 22, 2017, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Education (DOE) withdrew their May 13, 2016 “Dear Colleague” letter that provided guidance on steps to protect transgender students under Title IX of the...more
3/3/2017
/ Civil Rights Act ,
Dear Colleague Letter ,
Department of Education ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Discrimination ,
Educational Institutions ,
FERPA ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Gender Identity ,
Gloucester County School Board v G.G. ,
LGBTQ ,
School Restrooms ,
SCOTUS ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title IX ,
Transgender ,
Trump Administration
This year has been a busy year for education law in the area of data privacy. Educational institutions continue to be a rich target for hackers. Additionally, there were some important developments in the interpretation of...more
12/29/2016
/ ATDS ,
Colleges ,
Data Breach ,
Dear Colleague Letter ,
Department of Education ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Educational Institutions ,
Emergency Alerts ,
FCC ,
FERPA ,
Hackers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
HIPAA Breach ,
Hiring Statistics ,
LGBTQ ,
Malware ,
Medical Records ,
Obama Administration ,
OCR ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Phishing Scams ,
Right to Privacy ,
Robocalling ,
Student Records ,
TCPA ,
Text Messages ,
Transgender ,
Trump Administration ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices ,
Universities
While law enforcement have access to new technology owned by third parties that assist them with protecting the public, questions arise as to who should own the data gathered by that technology. Sometimes, it is the...more
On September 14, 2016, the Department of Education (DOE) issued a “Dear Colleague Letter” to provide guidance on the application of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to the disclosure of student medical...more
10/19/2016
/ Dear Colleague Letter ,
Department of Energy (DOE) ,
Educational Institutions ,
FERPA ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Healthcare ,
Medical Records ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Popular ,
Student Privacy ,
Student Records ,
Students
On August 11, 2016, a Florida state court judge held that the University Central Florida Board of Trustees (“UCF”) must produce Budget Request forms and Activity and Service Fee Database records to Knight News, Inc. (“KNI”)...more
A federal judge in North Carolina sealed a transcript of a University of North Carolina (UNC) hearing to determine whether the plaintiff was responsible for committing sexual acts without consent. In the case in question, the...more
On May 13, 2016, the Department of Justice and the Department of Education issued a “Dear Colleague Letter” (DCL) describing reasonable steps to protect transgender students under Title IX of the Educational Amendments of...more
6/23/2016
/ Dear Colleague Letter ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
FERPA ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Gender Identity ,
LGBTQ ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Orientation ,
Student Privacy ,
Student Records ,
Students ,
Title IX ,
Transgender
The Fourth Circuit held that the Government is not required to obtain a warrnt for cell tower data in United States v. Graham, 4th Cir., No. 12-4659, en banc (5/31/16). The Court found that cell tower data was voluntarily...more
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce recently held a hearing to evaluate federal policies affecting education research and student privacy. At issue is whether and how Congress will update the 1974 Family...more