Public records are defined by the Code of Alabama as “all written, typed or printed books, papers, letters, documents and maps made or received in pursuance of law by the public officers of the state, counties, municipalities and other subdivisions of government in the transactions of public business and shall also include any record authorized to be made by any law of this state belonging or pertaining to any court of record or any other public record authorized by law or any paper, pleading, exhibit or other writing filed with, in or by any such court, office or officer.”
Sanctions for Noncompliance
Although the Public Records Law itself does not reference sanctions for noncompliance, attorneys’ fees have been awarded in at least one public records case. See Tuscaloosa News v. Garrison, CV-99-408 (Cir. Ct. of Tuscaloosa County, Ala., Jan. 15, 2001) (portion of fees granted; case involved both public records and open meetings issues). But see Blankenship v. City of Hoover, 590 So. 2d 245, 250 (Ala. 1991) (upholding trial court’s refusal to award fees in case under Public Records Law).
Ala. Code 36-12-40 et seq.
Sanctions for Noncompliance
Although the Public Records Law itself does not reference sanctions for noncompliance, attorneys’ fees have been awarded in at least one public records case. See Tuscaloosa News v. Garrison, CV-99-408 (Cir. Ct. of Tuscaloosa County, Ala., Jan. 15, 2001) (portion of fees granted; case involved both public records and open meetings issues). But see Blankenship v. City of Hoover, 590 So. 2d 245, 250 (Ala. 1991) (upholding trial court’s refusal to award fees in case under Public Records Law).
Since 2006, FOIA lawsuits have increased 57% and the cost of defending these lawsuits is millions of dollars.
With Evertel, we provide an efficient, proven, and effective manner to share FOIA documents to those requesting. Once your legal experts provide the policy, the executives auditing your agency’s platform can immediately release the approved documents in minutes, avoiding multi-year litigations and expensive legal costs.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s CJIS Security Policy sets the minimum security requirements to provide an acceptable level of assurance to protect the full lifecycle of Criminal Justice Information. Agencies using cloud-based services are required to make informed decisions on whether or not the cloud provider can offer services that maintain compliance with the requirements of the CJIS Security Policy.
The CJIS Security Policy integrates presidential and FBI directives, federal laws, and the criminal justice community’s Advisory Policy Board decisions, along with guidance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The Policy is periodically updated to reflect evolving security requirements.
The CJIS Security Policy defines 13 areas that private contractors such as cloud service providers must evaluate to determine if their use of cloud services can be consistent with CJIS requirements. These areas correspond closely to NIST 800-53, which is also the basis for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) program.
The key agency requirements of CJIS compliance are summarized here:
If you’re sharing CJIS-protect data with another organization, you must have a written agreement between the organizations that you will both comply with CJIS security standards.
Any employees handling CJIS data must have security training within the first six months of being assigned to their role and additional training every other year in the future.
You must have safeguards in place to detect and contain any data breaches. You also need data recovery measures in place. Any data breach must be reported to the appropriate authorities.
You should implement audit controls to monitor who is accessing data, when they are accessing it, and for what purpose they are accessing it. This information should be logged for any future audits.
Under CJIS policy area 5, you must have the ability to control who can access your data. This can include controlling who can access, upload, download, transfer, and delete secure data. It also impacts your login management systems, remote access controls, and more.
The physical location for stored CJIS data must be secured at all times, preventing access from unauthorized persons.
Not only should your data be protected, but your organization’s systems and communications should also be protected, as well. This policy section outlines the steps you must take to protect your systems, like encryption, network security, data breach detection measures, and more.
If you use and manage CJIS data, you are subject to audits a minimum every three years by either the CJIS Audit Unit (CAU) or the CJIS Systems Agency (CSA) for your state.
Everyone associated with your organization – from employees to contractors and subcontractors – must submit to security screenings and national fingerprint-based record checks.
Even your employees’ mobile devices (like smartphones and tablets) are subject to CJIS oversight. You must establish usage restrictions, and authorize, monitor, and control access to your systems via these devices.
It is important to note upfront that HIPAA compliance requirements are primarily focused on health providers. Having said that, government agencies, and in particular 1st Responders, are typically transmitting HIPAA data daily and in non-compliant fashions. In today’s litigious world, it makes sense to comply with HIPAA requirements and remove or minimize the risk.
HIPAA violations are expensive. The penalties for noncompliance are based on the level of negligence and can range from $100 to $50,000 per violation (or per record), with a maximum penalty of $1.5 million per year for violations of an identical provision. Violations can also carry criminal charges that can result in jail time.
Fines increase with the number of patients and the amount of neglect. The lowest fines start with a breach where you didn’t know and, by exercising reasonable diligence, would not have known that you violated a provision. At the other end of the spectrum are fines levied where a breach is due to negligence and not corrected in 30 days. In legalese, this is known as mens rea (state of mind). So fines increase in severity from no mens rea (didn’t know) to assumed mens rea (willful neglect).
The fines and charges are broken down into 2 major categories: Reasonable Cause and Willful Neglect. Reasonable Cause ranges from $100 to $50,000 per incident and does not involve any jail time. Willful Neglect ranges from $10,000 to $50,000 for each incident and can result in criminal charges.
While encryption is an addressable (rather than required) specification, it does not mean optional. The vast majority of data breaches are due to stolen or lost data that was unencrypted. When in doubt, you should implement the addressable implementation specifications of the Security Rule. Most of them are best practices.
Breaches can occur when employees lose unencrypted portable devices, mistakenly send PHI to vendors who post that information online and disclose personally identifiable, sensitive information on social networks.
These are all examples from actual cases. Employee training and adherence to security policies and procedures are extremely important.
Almost half of all data breaches are the result of theft. When laptops, smartphones, etc. are unencrypted the risk of a breach increases considerably. With Evertel, your data is safely stored off-premise; so that a lost or stolen mobile phone or laptop has no data on it and hence and no PHI is compromised.
No obligation 30-day free trial