New State Laws Could Make Encryption Widespread

New laws that took effect in Nevada on Oct. 1 and will kick in on Jan. 1 in Massachusetts may effectively mandate encryption for companies' hard drives, portable devices, and data transmissions. The laws will be binding on any organization that maintains personal information about residents of the two states. (Washington and Michigan are considering similar legislation.) Nevada's law deals mostly with transmitted information and Massachusetts's emphasizes stored information. Between them the two laws should put more of a dent into lax security practices than widespread laws requiring customer notification of data breaches have done. (Such laws are on the books in 40 states and by one estimate have reduced identity theft by 2%.) Here are a couple of legal takes on the impact of the new laws.

Comments

Re:mofo.com?

[hajihill]

Assuming here that the above poster is being funny, I'll clear this up for those this might actually cause some concern.

Morrison & Foerster is a internationally recognized and prestigious law firm established in 1883, that has been going by the nickname MoFo since 1973. More on the linked wikipedia article for those still interested or skeptical.