I’m no longer amazed when journalists occasionally report as news that schools cannot reveal disciplinary outcomes of students due to FERPA. In today’s installment, Michael Brindley reports: When students are disciplined for bullying, privacy laws prevent school officials from telling victims and their parents what action was taken, Superintendent Mark Conrad said last week. During…
Category: Laws
Emails on laptop not protected by the Stored Communications Act
Evan Brown comments on Thompson v. Ross, 2010 WL 3896533 (W.D. Pa. September 30, 2010): Messages from Yahoo and AOL email accounts saved on laptop computer were not in “electronic storage” as defined by Stored Communications Act. Plaintiff’s ex-girlfriend kept his laptop computer after the two of them broke up. The ex-girlfriend let two of…
AU: Privacy revisions present risk for offshore clouds
Brett Winterford reports: Changes to privacy legislation under consideration by the Federal Government should pose serious concerns for businesses embracing cloud computing, according to a leading intellectual property lawyer. A revised Privacy Principle 8, released in an exposure draft [PDF] [see page 17] in June 2010, creates new requirements for organisations outsourcing data that identifies Australian citizens to offshore data…
Three Major Tech Firms Back Rush’s Privacy Bill
Juliana Gruenwald reports: Three prominent tech companies have come out in support of privacy legislation offered by a key House lawmaker, saying the bill provides “the appropriate balance.” On Monday, Intel, eBay and Microsoft wrote Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, voicing support for his…