Privacy & Security

Perkins Coie is pleased to announce that Mark Eckenwiler has joined the firm’s Privacy & Security Practice in its Washington, D.C. office as Senior Counsel.

Perkins Coie, representing CTIA - The Wireless Association, enjoined Puerto Rico in the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico from enforcing a law that would have required pre-paid mobile phone providers to collect subscriber information and submit it to a government agency - the Telecommunications Regulatory Board of Puerto Rico - so that the Board could maintain a registry of pre-paid mobile phone users.

Al Gidari was quoted in an article titled "Judges Weigh Phone Tracking."  The article discusses how state and federal authorities follow the movements of thousands of Americans each year by secretly monitoring the location of their cellphones, often with little judicial oversight, in a practice facing legal challenges.

Perkins Coie announced today that a senior member of the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, which oversees DOJ’s nationwide counterterrorism, counterespionage, and export-control programs, has joined the firm. Todd Hinnen, who served in the National Security Division as both Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Law and Policy and Acting Assistant Attorney General, a role in which he managed all aspects of the 320-attorney division, begins as a partner in the firm’s Washington, DC office effective immediately.

Seattle Licensing & Technology Partners, Dax Hansen and Kirk Soderquist were recently mentioned in the AllThingsD article, "A Sneak Peek at Zynga’s IPO: How to Turn Virtual Goods Into Real Money." The article delves into the pending IPO of Zynga, which will be the first major U.S. company supported primarily by the sale of virtual goods to do so. Because of its novelty, there are no current laws governing the method for taking into account the sale of virtual goods. For their part, Kirk and Dax look into the legal consequences of virtual goods. To read the full article, including comments from Dax, visit: http://allthingsd.com/20110624/what-zynga-will-look-like-as-a-public-company/.

Perkins Coie's National Privacy & Security practice was again recognized by Chambers USA, this year climbing to Band 2.

This is the latest opinion in the ongoing litigation arising out of a massive data breach suffered by Hannaford Bros. grocery stores. In re Hannaford Bros. Privacy Litigation, __F. Supp. 2d __, Case No. 2:08-MD-1954-DBH, 2013 WL 1182733 (D. Me. Mar. 20, 2013).

On April 3, 2013, the New York Times published an article about commercial databases that contain reports from retail employers about employees who were accused of stealing from their workplaces.

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Knowles, 568 U.S. __, No. 11-1450, 2013 WL 1104735 (Mar. 19, 2013), that plaintiffs attempting to bring a class action lawsuit cannot escape federal jurisdiction by agreeing to seek less than $5 million in damages.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts recently held that collecting a consumer's ZIP code at the point of sale may violate Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 93, Section 105(a) (Section 105(a)), which restricts the ability of retailers to collect personal identification information (PII) from consumers in connection with a credit card transaction.

A federal judge in the Northern District of California recently added to the growing list of cases rejecting attempts to recover damages resulting from data breaches.  In In re LinkedIn User Privacy Litigation, Case no. 5:12-CV-03088 EJD (March 6, 2013), the court dismissed a lawsuit brought by LinkedIn users who were upset over the June 2012 posting of 6.5 million stolen LinkedIn user passwords.

The California Supreme Court recently issued a landmark ruling in Apple Inc. v. Superior Court (formerly Krescent v. Apple Inc. in trial court proceedings), a case with wide-reaching implications for consumer privacy in e-commerce. The issue before the Court was whether California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act (the Act), which generally prohibits retailers from collecting or requesting personal identification information (PII) as a condition of accepting credit card payments, should apply to online retailers.