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On May 3, 2023, Utah’s Online Pornography Viewing Age Requirements Act (the “Act”) went into effect. The Act states that website operators must require internet users to prove they are eighteen years of age or older through a “digitized identification card” or third-party age-verification service when accessing websites containing “pornography or other materials harmful to minors.” In other words, to access adult websites in Utah, users must either upload their driver’s license (or other state-issued identification) or subject themselves to third-party age verification through tools such as biometric scanning. Simply clicking “I am 18 or older” is no longer sufficient with this legislation; an individual must now give personally identifiable information, including in some cases, a biometric face scan.…

Continue Reading Porn, Privacy & Protecting Kids:  States Seek to Balance Individual Rights and Business Interests in New Online Age Verification Laws

As we previously covered in February, there has been an increase in lawsuits, including class actions, filed against website operators in various states (including California, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, and Pennsylvania) for violations of state wiretapping laws or the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPPA). Since then, there have been some updates to such pending litigation. For purposes of this post, the pending litigation can be broken out into three categories: (1) Chat window wiretapping claims; (2) Session replay technology claims; and (3) claims under the VPPA.…

Continue Reading UPDATE: Litigation Related to Website Technology & Data Sharing

This month, Indiana passed its own privacy bill, Senate Bill 5 (“SB 5”) for consumer data protection. SB 5 is now awaiting signature from Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb. Once signed into law, Indiana will be the seventh state in the nation to enact a comprehensive privacy law. With a later effective date of January 1, 2026, SB 5 maintains the status-quo and largely follows the six other states with privacy laws (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Utah, and Virginia). Following is a high level overview of the key provisions of SB 5.…

Continue Reading Up Next, the Crossroads of America: Indiana Positioned as 7th State to Join Privacy Party

Recently, the California Office of Administrative Law approved the California Privacy Protection Agency’s (CPPA) long-awaited final regulations (“Regulations”). While there are many rules businesses need to ensure they comply with, this article focuses on the CPPA’s enforcement action and the role the Agency will play in interacting with companies moving forward.…

Continue Reading CPPA Final Regulations Are Here

Since China’s Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) took effect in 2021, companies doing business in mainland China have questioned what is required of them when transferring personal information in and out of the country. Taft pondered this very question in our earlier blog post, ‘Data Transfers and Beyond: China Moves Closer to Finalizing Draft Provisions Permitting the Transfer of Personal Data Abroad.’ Last month, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) provided its long-awaited answer, by issuing its final version of the measures of the standard contact for cross-border transfer of personal information (Final Measures), along with a standard contractual clauses equivalent (PIPL SCCs). Similar to the EU SCCs or UK international data transfer agreement (IDTA), the PIPL SCCs allow companies to freely import and export data from China. Here is what companies should know about this new Chinese transfer mechanism:…

Continue Reading The Wait is Over: Cyberspace Administration of China Releases Model Contract for Data Transfers

A few months ago we wrote about the proposed draft rules for the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) (“draft rules”). Since then, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office has published two updated versions of the draft rules. The third and latest version of the proposed draft CPA rules was published on January 27, 2023 and the comment period for this version ended on February 3, 2023. Below is a brief high-level overview of some of the key changes made in the past two revisions of the draft rules.…

Continue Reading Colorado Privacy Act Update: Colorado AG Issues Updated Draft Rules

Over the past year, there has been a growing number of lawsuits, including class actions, filed against website operators in various states (including California, Florida, Illinois, and Pennsylvania) for violations of state wiretapping laws or the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (“VPPA”).…

Continue Reading Heads Up!  Increasing Litigation Related to Website Technology & Data Sharing

Swiss Flag

Switzerland is implementing new legislation to better protect its citizens’ data (“revFADP”), replacing the longstanding Federal Act on Data Protection of 1992. The revFADP improves the processing of personal data and grants Swiss citizens new rights consistent with other comprehensive data protection laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GPDR) and UK GDPR. This important legislative change also comes with a number of increased obligations for companies doing business in Switzerland. Companies must quickly get up to speed on the revFADP requirements because the Act takes effect on September 1, 2023. Companies should not assume that compliance with the GDPR and UK GDPR equals compliance under the revFADP. While this revised legislation has many similarities to the GDPR, there are a few stark differences companies should be aware of. Here is the breakdown of what companies should know.…

Continue Reading Nothing Neutral about the New Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection

On December 13, 2022, the European Commission published a draft adequacy decision for the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (“EU-U.S. DPF or DPF”) signaling the potential return of the framework allowing the flow of personal data between the EU and the United States. Although this is a draft decision, if approved, it will ease trans-Atlantic data flow and ease the restrictions that were placed after the 2020 Schrems II decision invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework for cross-border transfers. This draft adequacy decision ultimately concluded that the DPF provides an adequate level of protection of personal data.…

Continue Reading Don’t Call It A Comeback: EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Inches Closer to Implementation Following the European Commission’s Draft Adequacy Decision

As you consider the end of the year and beginning of a new year, we in Taft’s Privacy and Data Security Practice thought to provide you with a simple list of data protection resolutions you might consider, both professionally and personally.

1.  Get strong!  Now is a good time to make a change in passwords for your accounts, and specifically make them strong passwords (i.e. ten characters or more, including an upper and lower case letter, number, and…

Continue Reading 2023 Privacy and Data Security Resolutions