Biometric Information Privacy and Cybersecurity With Peter Halprin

In this episode of CHATTINN CYBER, Marc Schein interviews Peter A. Halprin, partner at Pasich LLP’s New York office, where he assists policyholders with insurance coverage issues. He is also an adjunct professor of law at Cardozo Law with expertise in areas of arbitration, commercial law, dispute resolution, and processes international arbitration. Today’s conversation is centred around privacy laws and explains the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) in detail.

The BIPA came around in 2008 and had since stood out from other privacy laws for its extensive litigation surrounding its purpose, scope of implementation, and relevant details. It intends to cover protection for biometric risks, including fingerprints, retinal scans, and several other face or body detections that have become commonplace today by regulating the collection, dissemination, storage, consent, and destruction of any associated data from the point of generation.

Any exclusion on the distribution of materials that violates a statute, particularly TCPA, would also apply to PIPA or other similar claims. Moreover, the BIPA also allows a private right to action, which means you can individually sue people for violations. Peter explains this by breaking down Six Flags’ fingerprint scan privacy issue, for which the entertainment corporation was slammed $36 million by the plaintiff as settlement despite having refused any fault or liability.

Bigger privacy violation claims can have a twofold benefit from insurance – helping with the defense of the claim and indemnity or the settlement of a potential class of action. A recent decision by the Eastern District of North Carolina has brought into light the importance of having your risk coverage neatly handled under a cyber policy.

In conclusion, Peter explains why it helps to have a broker to assess your policy – the more expressed the coverage, the better informed you are of the risks. Additionally, having the right policy can reduce the liability and defence costs on your side.

Highlights:

“The interesting thing, I think that we’re seeing, too, is a lot of litigation about whether or not insurance should respond. But I caution that most of those cases involve general liability, or business owners policies, and not cyber insurance.”

“An exclusion based on the distribution of materials in violation of a statute, particularly TCPA, would also apply to PIPA or other similar claims. ”

“I think that the main thing that people need to keep in mind is just when you’re doing policy reviews, and when you’re working with your broker to assess your policy, the more expressed the coverage can be for something like that. I think the better to know exactly what is and what isn’t covered when you’re buying your policy so that you can really understand the risks associated with what you’re doing, then to try to have to figure it out after the fact.”

“If you’re working with your insurer and your insurance providing coverage is that they may see a lot of these claims for a lot of their clients. And so panel counsel or counsel that is pre-approved may have a lot of experience by doing these things. And it may even help reduce liability and perhaps defense costs on that on that side, too. ”

Time-Stamps:

[01:51] – Peter talks about his work and involvement with cyber insurance

[03:03] – Exploring the BIPA in detail

[07:27] – Does the BIPA have a private right to action?

[09:53] – The role of insurance in bigger privacy claims

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exploring Fraud Resolution, Identity Theft Protection, And Security Incident Notifications With Michael Bruemmer

In this episode of CHATTINN CYBER, Marc Schein interviews Michael Bruemmer, VP of Consumer Protection and Global Data Breach at Experian Consumer Services, CA. Marc and Michael discuss the latter’s education, upbringing, unexpected journey into cyberspace, and unique business model and services.

Michael entered the cyber industry fifteen years ago, after quitting working on the tech side for Dell and Lenovo. After returning to Austin, he joined CSIdentity, leading the sales, data breach, and identity theft departments, and hasn’t looked back since.

Michael attributes Experian’s success in insurance cybersecurity with three things — their Program and Events Manager, their family of forensics experts, privacy attorneys, data analysts, and notification vendors (among many others), and the powerful brand and community they’ve created within the organization. Their notification industry work includes fraud resolution, offline enrollment, and identity theft protection.

Michael explains that the foundation of his work hasn’t altered in the past three years and continues to focus on consistently delivering incident notification services, meeting deadlines, and ensuring customer satisfaction. He discusses Experian’s unique business model that provides an ongoing fraud resolution, using which clients can get a year’s worth of credit monitoring. Michael also touches on Experian’s plans of rolling out crisis management response services soon.

The best practice to mitigate cyber risks at any company is to consult with cybersecurity experts before a potentially harmful incident has already occurred. Even if you haven’t had an event, Michael explains that you should always have a private attorney and a cyber insurance provider at the ready. In the event of a suspected breach, you need to reach out to them quickly.

Towards the close of the episode, Michael also talks about ransomware attacks and the percentage of companies giving in to such threats today. Tune in to this episode to learn in better detail about thriving in the cybersecurity industry.

Highlights:

“We value our relationships with people that refer us, that don’t refer us, because it’s such a small community. If your reputation is good in that community, it goes a long way but it only takes one bad event, one dissatisfied customer and then things don’t go so well after that.”

“What I suggest is that you have a privacy attorney, you’re also able to operate under privilege as you if you so choose to. And we’re always encouraging that with any client.”

“The survey that ZD net said was that, in actuality, 83% (of companies) paid the ransomware, which I found was really interesting, despite the FBI, despite the other regulatory agencies, they don’t pay, you’re probably going to get it dumped on the dark web, let alone your brand is going to be exposed. Let alone you’ll never get the encryption key.”

“About 50% of the events that we get contacted in become never notifiable. So in other words, we don’t even go into action, but we still get a heads up so that we can prepare.”

Time-Stamps:

[00:43] – Michael talks about his upbringing

[04:38] – About the cybersecurity services provided at Experian

[05:58] – The notification practice at Experian

[10:21] – Why you need legal counsel before a potential cybersecurity breach/ threat

Connect with Michael:

Website: www.experian.com/databreach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelbruemmer/