Kavitha Gupta's blog

Japan adopts amendment to its privacy act Addleshaw Goddard LLP Japan September 25 2015 The Japanese government has amended the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI) establishing a new Personal Information Protection Commission as of 1st January 2016. The new law includes some restrictions concerning overseas transfers of personal data, and imposes restrictions on the processing of sensitive information. The amendment was due to be passed in the Summer but was delayed because of a data breach incident involving pension records. The amended APPI expands the definition of “personal information” to include a person’s bodily information, such as fingerprint data and face recognition data. Numeric codes associated with an individual will also be covered by the new definition, such as passport numbers and driver’s license numbers. A new government authority will be established, which will be called the “Personal Information Protection Committee”

Multi-million dollar high tech settlement of anti-poaching case provides lessons to even much smaller employers Blog Employer Law Report Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP USA September 11 2015 Apple, Adobe, Google, and Intel had a $415 million settlement approved last week to settle the terms of a lawsuit brought by software engineers alleging that the companies had violated wage and anti-trust laws by agreeing not to recruit or “poach” each other’s employees. The case began in 2009 when the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust division investigated the employment and recruitment practices of the companies. Then, in 2011, software engineers sued the companies for damages, claiming the companies had agreed to provide each other notice whenever one made an offer to another’s employee.  They also alleged the companies agreed to cap pay packages for prospective employees and to refrain from recruiting one another’s employees. Plaintiffs claim these agreements lowe