Just in time for the holiday weekend, the New York State Department of Financial Services released the updated 2019 Paid Family Leave (PFL) premium rates.
As discussed in our May 18, 2018 LEGALcurrents®, on April 12, 2018 Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the New York State Budget, which included new requirements to address workplace sexual harassment. Under the new rules, by October 9, 2018 all New York employers (regardless of size) are required to either adopt the State’s model anti-harassment policy and training or adopt a policy and implement a training program that meets New York standards.
In an interesting IAPP article, Kelce Wilson, InfraGard General Counsel, describes how bad actors without any hacking expertise can potentially inject themselves into the middle of a data breach notification effort and engage in widespread identity theft. The other unanticipated consequence of data breach notification is this: with the trend toward public disclosure of data breach notification letters and statistics, more and more information is in the public domain about the types of data our organizations collect and whether or not we encrypt that data. Case in point, Massachusetts, where yearly Data Breach Notification Reports are available on-line. The 2018 Report shows data breaches reported to Massachusetts authorities this year.
On July 16th, the IRS issued controversial guidance eliminating the requirement for non-charitable exempt organizations to report the names of contributors on their tax returns.
The guidance is the end, for now, of a simmering political controversy relating to information available to the government regarding “dark money” and donations to non-charitable exempt organizations.
In a classic story of “it’s never over until it’s over,” cybersecurity David LabMD challenged the FTC’s Goliathan ability to issue sweeping orders in relation to security concerns under Section 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act. LabMD had lost its challenge of the FTC’s underlying authority to issue such orders, but continued in its fight, ultimately challenging the wording of the FTC’s form order itself. And LabMD ultimately won in a landmark decision that can be found here.