Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California dismissed with prejudice a putative class action against Redbox alleging violation of the California Song-Beverly Credit Card Act, which prohibits collecting and recording "personal identification information" as part of a credit card transaction.

Perkins Coie Partner Thomas Bell will be the Program Co-Chair for a conference entitled "Developing Applications for Mobile Devices."  The conference, hosted by Law Seminars International, will be held at the San Francisco Marriott Union Square Hotel on February 13 & 14, 2012.  Partner Timothy Alger will be speaking on the topic, "Litigation as a Private Sector Regulatory Mechanism for Enforcing User Privacy Requirements: What's Happening Now and in the Future?" and Partner Dax Hansen will be speaking in the topic, "Near Field Communications: Legal and Privacy Issues."

The Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS") has begun a pilot program of HIPAA privacy and security audits for health care providers and health plans, and the audits will have some very short turnaround times.

Perkins Coie Partner Albert Gidari will speak on January 17, 2012 on "Privacy, Security and Electronic Surveillance in the Age of Terror."

Perkins Coie Partner Albert Gidari was quoted in an article titled "Judges Weigh Phone Tracking." 

The First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled recently that plaintiffs in a data breach class action have standing based on money spent for card replacement fees and identity theft insurance, because such expenses were a reasonably foreseeable result of a significant data breach where there was evidence that a criminal enterprise was responsible for the breach and had actually used stolen credit card numbers hundreds of times. Anderson v. Hannaford Bros. Co., --- F.3d ----, NO. 10-2384, 10-2450, 2011 WL 5007175 (1st Cir. October 20, 2011).