So will “security
breach insurance” get more expensive or is it normal for insurance
companies to challenge any “first of its type” claim? (Because
the language looks clear to non-lawyer me.)
Understanding what your
insurance will cover when it comes to a data breach and what it won’t
can save you a lot of grief down the road. Roberta D. Anderson of
K&L Gates analyzes a recent case where the court concluded that a
breached entity was covered under the terms of their policy’s
language, but as we’ve seen elsewhere, that’s not always the
case:
The
U.S. District Court for the Central District of California recently
upheld coverage under a commercial general liability policy
for a hospital data breach that compromised the confidential medical
records of nearly 20,000 patients.
In
that case, Hartford Casualty Insurance Company v. Corcino &
Associates et al.,[1] the plaintiffs in two underlying class
actions sought, among other relief, statutory damages of $1,000 per
person under the California Confidentiality of Medical Information
Act (“CMIA”)[2] and statutory damages of up to $10,000 per person
under the California Lanterman Petris Short (“LPS”) Act.[3]
The
hospital sought coverage under a CGL policy, which stated that the
insurer, Hartford, would pay “those sums that the insured becomes
legally obligated to pay as damages because of … ‘personal and
advertising injury’”[4] and defined “personal and advertising
injury” to include “[o]ral, written or electronic publication
of material that violates a person’s right of privacy.”[5]
Hartford
initiated litigation seeking a declaration that the statutory relief
sought by the claimants was barred under an exclusion for “Personal
And Advertising Injury … [a]rising out of the violation of a
person’s right to privacy created by any state or federal act.”[6]
The hospital moved to dismiss Hartford’s complaint, arguing that
the exclusion did not apply “because the plaintiffs in the
underlying cases seek statutory remedies for breaches of privacy
rights that were not themselves ‘created by any state or federal
act,’ but which exist under common law and the California state
Constitution.”[7]
Applying
established rules of insurance policy construction, the court
concluded that the hospital’s interpretation of the policy was
reasonable and, therefore, “any relief awarded under the LPS and
CMIA would be covered, rather than excluded, under Hartford’s
Policy.”[8]
Read more on K&L
Gates or download the full article here
(pdf). The article previously appeared on Law360.com.
It must be because I'm
not a lawyer, but this seems crazy to me.
Young
men, get a 'yes' text before sex
… Never have sex
with a girl unless she's sent you a text that proves the sexual
relationship is consensual beforehand. And it's a good idea to even
follow up any sexual encounter with a tasteful text message saying
how you both enjoyed being with one another -- even if you never plan
on hooking up again.
Crazy, I know, but I've
actually been encouraging my son and his friends to use sexting --
minus the lewd photos -- to protect themselves from being wrongly
accused of rape. Because just as damning text messages and
Facebook posts helped convict the high-schoolers in Steubenville of
rape, technology can also be used to prove innocence.
“We have a system
that works.” “It's “Good Enough” for most users.” In many
places, there is effectively no competition. (What happens when
cities offer free wifi?)
US
download speeds sluggish compared with other countries
Considering the
Internet was invented in the US, it's a bit strange that the country
doesn't do better in speed rankings. Alas, it comes in at a sad 31st
in global download speed tests.
According to data
from Ookla, which runs Speedtest.net, the US places below dozens
of countries, including Latvia, Moldova, Andorra, Estonia, and
Uruguay. Asian and European
countries appear to be leading the pack with Hong Kong, Singapore,
Romania, South Korea, and Sweden snapping up the top five spots,
respectively.
Handy stuff for
students...
Free
Digital Photos and a Guide to Citing Them
FreeDigitalPhotos.net
is a new-to-me place to find digital images to re-use for free.
FreeDigitalPhotos.net allows you download and re-use low-resolution
images without restriction. To download and re-use high-resolution
images you need to publish a credit to the creator of the image.
That's not a hard requirement to meet. To help you meet the
requirement of crediting the photographer, FreeDigitalPhots.net
offers a simple
chart that outlines how to credit the creator of an image.
The left side of the chart lists the ways the images can be used and
how to credit the photographer for each use case.
Applications for
Education
It is easy to simply
right-click on images on the web and save them your computer. Just
because it can be done, doesn't mean it should be done or that it is
even safe (are you sure that you're only downloading an image and not
something else along with it?) and legal to do so. Unfortunately, I
frequently meet teachers who allow their students to engage in this
practice. Fortunately, there is an easy way to stop that practice.
The solution is to use images found on sites like
FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
For more free images
that your students can use, see this list
of sources of Public Domain images.
Perspective
Tablets
to carve out nearly half of PC market next year
From several
perspectives...
A
snapshot of one minute on the internet, today and in 2012
Geeky stocking stuffer?
Smartphone-controlled
paper airplane kit conquers the skies
I suck at paper
airplanes. Though I love origami in general, I have never managed to
build a truly flight-worthy paper plane. With the PowerUp
3.0 smartphone-controlled paper airplane kit,
though, I could get my revenge on aerodynamics.
No longer will paper
airplanes have to rely on clever folding techniques and outdated
technology like paper-clip weights to make them fly. PowerUp 3.0
includes a device called a Smart Module that clips onto your paper
airplane creation. This contains a small propeller and rudder to
power your plane through its flight.
A holiday caution.
Cyberscammers
take aim at Black Friday, Cyber Monday
'Tis the season for
cyberscams — and it's stacking up to be one of unprecedented
plunder for cybergrinches.
Crooks go where the
money is, and cybercriminals are concentrating their cleverness this
year on mobile devices and social media.
With Black Friday and
Cyber Monday just around the corner, cybercriminals have begun to
flood e-mail, social media postings and search results with tainted
web links, offers for worthless products and pitches for all variety
of scams.
… The crooks count
on one in 10 recipients of holiday-themed phishing lures to click on
a poisoned link, or fill out a bogus form.
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