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Mindi Giftos

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Mindi is a seasoned counselor in emerging information technology and intellectual property matters who works closely with companies and individuals to achieve success. She collaborates with clients on a broad range of privacy and security issues including IoT product development and launch, open source policies, compliance and transactional issues, trade secret matters, licensing, data breach preparedness, and litigating disputes in state and federal courts as well as before the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

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Keypoint: The Wisconsin Data Privacy Act would create CCPA and GDPR-like rights for Wisconsin residents and would strengthen Wisconsin’s data security and breach notification requirements.

Lawmakers in Wisconsin have proposed three bills that, if enacted, would create privacy rights for Wisconsin residents and compliance burdens for entities that process or control consumer data. All three bills were introduced on February 10, 2020 and an initial public hearing was held on February 12, 2020.Continue Reading Analyzing the 2020 Wisconsin Data Privacy Act

In 2010, Mark Zuckerberg famously stated that privacy was no longer a “social norm.”  Today, the Facebook founder is no doubt viewing social norms around privacy a bit differently, as are U.S. regulators and consumers.

On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) confirmed that it agreed to a settlement with Facebook, Inc. stemming from Facebook’s alleged privacy violations in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.  In the settlement order (Order), Facebook agreed to pay a record-breaking $5 billion penalty to resolve the FTC’s claims that Facebook violated a prior FTC order by repeatedly using deceptive disclosures and settings to undermine users’ privacy preferences and allowing Facebook to share users’ personal information without prior consent with third party applications.Continue Reading The FTC-Facebook Settlement Signals Major Shift in US Privacy Regulation

Ransomware. It is the word every corporate board and IT team fears. Ransomware is a type of malicious software that can quickly shut down an entire network of computers and compromise an enormous amount of critical data. Often, when a ransomware attack occurs, all connected systems are locked down and a message appears on the…

The European Union and United States differ greatly on law regulating the collection and transfer of personal data. For many years companies could rely upon the U.S.–EU Safe Harbor to lawfully make transatlantic data transfers and bridge the gap between the differing privacy frameworks. But in October 2015, the EU Court of Justice invalidated the U.S.–EU Safe Harbor on the grounds that it did not adequately protect personal data. This ruling jeopardized the continued flow of data from the EU to the United States and left many companies wondering how they could continue collecting and using data from the EU without violating the law.
Continue Reading Should my company self-certify under the EU–US privacy shield?