In light of the rapidly evolving COVID 19 pandemic and the unprecedented changes to the New York workforce and network infrastructure, Beckage PLLC has sought from New York’s Attorney General (AG) Letitia James a delay to the March 21 compliance milestone and general enforcement of the New York State Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security Act (SHIELD) Act by six months.
By letter dated March 18, 2020, the law firm Beckage, on behalf of a range of its clients which cut across industries and size in New York State, asked the AG to provide this relief for companies as well as a concurrent postponement of enforcement actions and civil penalties to allow companies throughout New York State to work to update their administrative, physical, and technical controls in light of the current pandemic.
For background, phase two of the SHIELD Act’s implementation has a compliance deadline of March 21, 2020. This compliance milestone requires companies handling NYS resident data to have certain administrative, physical, and technical controls and policies in place by this date for data security protections.
Leading up to March 21, companies were forced to respond to the COVID 19 outbreak, shift overnight to a remote workforce, but still meet the phase two of the SHIELD Act. Companies throughout the state have experience sudden changes in a very short period to adapt to the COVID 19 pandemic. Accordingly, any prior SHIELD Act compliance work needs to be reviewed and updated as necessary.
Considering the COVID 19 pandemic, for which Governor Cuomo issued a state-wide emergency declaration on March 13, 2020, Beckage’s letter to the AG highlighted the incredible challenges posed as it relates to the SHIELD Act.
Jennifer A. Beckage, Beckage said, “Businesses throughout the State are moving hundreds, if not thousands, of employees to remote workforce and cloud-based environments and are dedicating extensive Information Technology and HR resources to these efforts. The diversion of these resources to COIVD 19 efforts means that many organizations may not have the resources to meet the SHIELD Act’s March 21, 2020 milestone.” Additionally, even organizations with extensive resources that have already taken steps to comply with the Act by the milestone are now seeing their entire enterprise shift in light of COVID 19. As Ms. Beckage explained, “By moving to remote workforces overnight, existing policies, practices, network infrastructure, and risk assessments may have completely changed, rendering current policies in some respects irrelevant or obsolete, or requiring updates to existing administrative, physical and technical controls.”
Beckage supports the goals of the SHIELD Act and applauds New York’s efforts to keep the state’s laws up to date with current technology. Beckage is organizing comments on behalf of businesses impacted by the SHIELD Act, which will be anonymized and included in a report prepared by Beckage to the New York’s AG’s office as they continue to seek assistance from the AG. Should you wish to be included, please submit your comments through our SHIELD Act comment portal by emailing [email protected].
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