Photo of Joseph J. Lazzarotti

Joseph J. Lazzarotti is a principal in the Tampa, Florida, office of Jackson Lewis P.C. He founded and currently co-leads the firm's Privacy, Data and Cybersecurity practice group, edits the firm’s Privacy Blog, and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) with the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Trained as an employee benefits lawyer, focused on compliance, Joe also is a member of the firm’s Employee Benefits practice group.

In short, his practice focuses on the matrix of laws governing the privacy, security, and management of data, as well as the impact and regulation of social media. He also counsels companies on compliance, fiduciary, taxation, and administrative matters with respect to employee benefit plans.

From Finland — by way of our Jackson Lewis Workplace Privacy, Data Management, and Security Report blog — comes the story of a healthcare provider whose refusal to pay a ransom to cyberattackers resulted in a particularly disturbing compromise of customer data: the threat of public disclosure of patient psychotherapy records.

“This incident reveals a

As organizations aim to return to some type of normalcy, and help ensure a healthy and safe workplace, many have implemented COVID-19 screening programs that check for symptoms, and an employee’s recent travel and potential contact with the virus. Moreover, many states and localities across the nation are mandating or recommending the implementation of COVID-19

As reported by Bloomberg Law, data breach class action litigation has begun under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Filed in the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, a putative class action lawsuit against Hanna Andersson, LLC and its ecommerce platform provider, Salesforce.com, alleges negligence and a failure to maintain reasonable safeguards, among other

Illinois continues to adopt additional privacy and security legislation. The Prairie State is home to the Biometric Information Privacy Act, first of its kind legislation regulating the collection and possession of biometric information, and also the Personal Information Protection Act, considered one of the more expansive data breach notification laws in the nation. And now,

No industry or sector is immune to privacy or security issues.  This week a jury in a district court in Pennsylvania awarded $1,000 to each of the 68,000 class members who claimed that Bucks County, a county just outside Philadelphia, and several other municipal entities, violated state law by making their criminal records public, in

A key issue for any business facing class action litigation in response to a data breach is whether the plaintiffs, particularly consumers, will have standing to sue. Standing to sue in a data breach class action suit, largely turns on whether plaintiffs establish that they have suffered an “injury-in-fact” resulting from the data breach. Plaintiffs

In a ruling that may have significant impact on the recent wave of biometric privacy suits, an Illinois state appeals court held that plaintiffs must claim actual harm to be considered an “aggrieved person” covered by Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), in a dispute arising from the alleged unlawful collection of fingerprints from a