What does Target, Anthem Health, Home Depot and JPMorgan Chase have in common? Each of these companies have suffered from widely publicized data breaches. The breaches at these Fortune 500 companies affected millions of customers and were widely reported in the news. While these large-scale breaches made the nightly news, what happened at Target, Anthem Health, Home Depot and JPMorgan Chase were not isolated events. Data breaches are also occurring at small and mid-sized businesses and across all types of industries, from healthcare to financial services.
In 2005, New Jersey joined a growing number of states and passed a Data Breach Notification Law, N.J.S.A. 56:8-161, et. seq. Under the law, New Jersey requires that companies conducting business in the State disclose breaches that affect New Jersey customers. Disclosure is required when a customer’s personal information “was, or is reasonably believed to have been, accessed by an unauthorized person.” The law does not differentiate between a malicious attack against a business and a careless employee who discards a laptop full of social security numbers without destroying its hard drive. Under each scenario, notification of the breach may be necessary.
At Meyerson, Fox, Mancinelli & Conte, P.A. our attorneys counsel small and mid-sized companies on their data breach notification obligations. If your business has suffered a data breach, we can work with you to determine if customer notification is required and if so, we can facilitate the notification process. In addition to serving in a reactionary role after a data breach occurs, our attorneys counsel clients on preventative steps that can be taken to avoid a security lapse, such as creating policies and procedures to safeguard customer data.
For more information on Meyerson, Fox, Mancinelli & Conte, P.A. can assist your business, contact us today.