CF Disclosure Guidance: Topic No. 2 – Cybersecurity

By Division of Corporation Finance Securities and Exchange Commission “Summary: This guidance provides the Division of Corporation Finance’s views regarding disclosure obligations relating to cybersecurity risks and cyber incidents.”   The full text is available at http://www.sec.gov… Open pdf

Iowa State Bar Association Opinion 11-01

Committee on Ethics and Practice Guidelines – Opinion 11-01 Topics: “Use of Software as a Service – Cloud Computing” “Whether a lawyer or law firm may utilize what is known as ‘software as a service’ commonly referred to as ‘SaaS’” From the opinion: “We believe… [Rule 32:1.6 [Comment 17] ] establishes a reasonable and flexible approach […]

Nicole L. Black, Lawyers Must Understand How Cloud Computing Vendors Provide Services

The article discusses the importance of a lawyer having detailed knowledge of cloud computing services available to and used by the lawyer, specific features and practices that a lawyer should understand, and the ethical implications.   From the Article: “Once you’ve determined how your cloud computing provider will deliver services to your firm, you must […]

Alessandro Acquisti, Ralph Gross, Fred Stutzman, Faces of Facebook: Privacy in the Age of Augmented Reality

The research investigates “the feasibility of combining publicly available online social network data with off‐the‐shelf face recognition technology for the purpose of large‐scale, automated, peer‐based 1. individual re‐identification, online and offline 2. “accretion” and linkage of online, potentially sensitive, data to someone’s face in the offline world” The full text is available at: http://www.heinz.cmu…

Held v. Ferrellgas, Inc., 2011 WL 3896513 (D. Kan. Aug. 31, 2011)

In this case employment discrimination case Defendant (Ferrellgas) filed a motion to compel Plaintiff (Held) to produce data from Plaintiff’s Facebook account. Plaintiff objected, stating that the information is “irrelevant, confidential and private”. The court granted Defendant’s motion to compel discovery as it appears that Defendant is attempting to mitigate Plaintiff’s privacy concerns by allowing […]

New York County Lawyers’ Association Ethics Opinion 743

Committee on Professional Ethics Topic: Lawyer Investigation of Juror Internet and Social Networking Postings during Conduct of Trial Digest of the Committee: “It is proper and ethical under RPC 3.5 for a lawyer to undertake a pretrial search of a prospective juror’s social networking site, provided that there is no contact or communication with the […]

Nicole Black, Law Life: Cloud computing and the encryption red herring, legalnews.com

From the Article: “The bottom line is that lawyers can use cloud computing without encrypting the files before storing them in the cloud. That being said, the determination of whether to upload unencrypted client data into the cloud will vary from one law practice to another and is contingent upon the type of data that […]