New Data Protection Laws Go Into Effect Today

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Happy New Year!

Several news laws go into effect today. Here are just a few of them...

Canada: Lawyers Must Comply With Client Identification And Verification Requirements

"Starting January 1, 2009 a new law will go into effect where writing, sending, or reading a text-based communication while driving will be against the law for all drivers in California."

California's Senate Bill 541

Hospitals, healthcare facilities, clinics, hospices and home health agencies are required to prevent the unauthorized acccess to, or use or disclosure of, a patient's medical information.

California's Assembly Bill 211

License healthcare professionals who "knowingly and willfully" obtain , disclose or use medical information unlawfully are subject to civil penalties ranging from $2,500 to $25,000 per violation.

Massachusetts' 201 CMR 17.00: Standards for the Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonwealth

There are many requirements in this law. If you have customers or employees in Massachusetts be sure you read it closely!

Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) update

Under the old rule, only a medical provider could obtain medical information about an employee for an employer. Under the new rule, however, an employer that wants additional medical information about an employee to confirm him or her for FMLA leave may have various representatives--such as a health care provider, a human resources professional, a leave administrator, or a management official--contact the employee's health care provider. An employee's direct supervisor is prohibited from contacting the employee's health care provider. (NOTE: This Act will go into effect January 16, not today.)

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Rebecca Herold's Bio:

Rebecca Herold, CISSP, CIPP, CISM, CISA, FLMI, has been providing information security, privacy and regulatory assistance and services to organizations from a wide range of industries for the past two decades. Rebecca was instrumental in building the information security and privacy program while at Principal Financial Group, which was awarded the CSI Information Security Program of the Year Award in 1998. IT Security ranked Rebecca as one of the top 59 IT security influencers, and Computerworld put Rebecca their list of the world's best privacy experts and on their list of the best privacy consulting firms in both 2007 and 2008. Rebecca has been CPO for two consulting organizations, and has had her own information privacy, security and compliance business since 2004. Rebecca has written chapters for several books, dozens of articles, and has been writing a monthly privacy column for the CSI Alert newsletter since the beginning of 2001, and is working on her 13th book. Some of her other books include The Privacy Papers, Managing an Information Security and Privacy Awareness and Training Program, The Definitive Guide to Security Inside the Perimeter (Realtime Publishers), The Shortcut Guide to Improving IT Service Support through ITIL (Realtime Publishers), and The Practical Guide to HIPAA Privacy and Security Compliance. In addition, Rebecca is the leader of The Realtime IT Compliance Community where she posts to her IT Compliance weblog. You can contact Rebecca at: rebecca_herold@realtimepublishers.net.

Comments

Didn't the effective date for Massachusetts' 201 CMR 17.00: Standards for the Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonwealth get pushed back five months until May?

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=71552

Posted by: Brett Byers | January 2, 2009 2:13 PM

Rebecca-

Actually, the Massachusetts Privacy Law (201 CMR 17.00) doesn't go into effect until May 1, 2009. The deadline was extended by the OCABR in November 2008. Details can be found here: http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=ocapressrelease&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Business&L2=Identity+Theft&sid=Eoca&b=pressrelease&f=081114_IDTheftupdate&csid=Eoca

My firm will be hosting a free working session on this new law at the SOURCE Boston conference in March. For those interested in participating, please get in contact with me.

Brandon

Posted by: Brandon Dunlap | January 2, 2009 2:33 PM

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