Privacy Risks Get Real – California Privacy Laws, Octomom, and Kaiser Permanente

No organization wants to be the first  to be fined because of a new regulation. Unfortunately, that’s exactly where Kaiser Permanente finds itself.  After some high profile cases of unauthorized access to celebrities’ medical records, the California legislature adopted two new privacy laws (SB 541 and AB 211);  these regulations were so swiftly enacted that they contained spelling errors. Both regulations went into effect on January 1 of this year. Five months later, Kaiser Permanente has become the first enterprise to be fined under this new regime.

Regulators have levied the maximum fine, $250,000, for the recent incident involving Nadya “Octomom” Suleman.  (Kevin commented on this previously.)  All in all, 23 individuals looked at Ms. Suleman’s records without authorization. Of these, 15 have either been fired or resigned.  And although the state regulators have fined Kaiser, they have yet to penalize any of these 23 individuals – which they can do under state law.

As reported in the LA Times, Suleman’s lawyer said:

I think Kaiser handled it professionally. They found out, they terminated the employees, they brought it to our attention. They certainly didn’t try to hide it.

It’s important to note that even though Kaiser acted appropriately, laws like SB 541 are clear cut: unauthorized access to medical information =  fine. Do not pass Go; do not collect $200.

As we’ve said before privacy risks are real. The fines are increasing. The number of regulations is increasing. Now more than ever is the time to register for this year’s Catalyst conference so you can attend our Privacy Risks Get Real track and learn how to reduce the chance your organization will become the next “first.”

(Cross posted from Burton Group’s Identity blog.)

Nailing Down the Definition of “Entitlement Management”

Ian Yip’s take on access management versus entitlement management can be partially summed up with this equation:

Entitlement management is simply fine-grained authorisation + XACML

I have four problems with this.

First, definitions that include a protocol are worrisome as they can overly restrict the definition. For example, if I defined federation as authentication via SAML, people would quickly point out that authentication via WS-Fed was just as viable as a definition. So in terms of an industry conversation, we need to make sure that our terms are not too narrow.

Second, I fear that this definition is a reflection of products in the market today and not a statement on what “entitlement management” is meant to do.  Yes, most of today’s products can use XACML. Yes, they facilitate authorization decisions based on a wider context. But who’s to say that these products, and the market as a whole, have reached their final state? Along these lines, I wonder if externalized authorization stores are a required part of an “entitlement management” solution?

Third, there is something missing from the definition – the policy enforcement point. A fine-grained authorization engine provides a policy decision point, but that still leaves the need for an enforcement point. This holds true whether an application has externalized its authorization decisions or not.

Finally, I have a problem with the phrase “entitlement management” (just ask my co-workers). As I have blogged about before, Kevin and I have been in the midst of a large research project focusing on role management. One of the things we have learned from this project is that enterprises do not use the phrase “entitlement management” the same way we do.

A bit of history – three or so years ago Burton Group, at a Catalyst, introduced the phrase “entitlement management” to include the run-time authorization decision process that most of the industry referred to as “fine-grained authorization.” At the time, this seemed about right. Flash forward to this year and our latest research and we have learned that our definition was too narrow.

The enterprises that we talked to use “entitlement management” to mean:
·      The gathering of entitlements from target systems (for example, collecting all the AD groups or TopSecret resource codes)
·      Reviewing these entitlements to see if they are still valid
·      Reviewing the assignment of these entitlements to individuals to see if the assignments are appropriate
·      Removing and cleaning up excessive or outdated entitlements
More often than not, we found that our customers used “entitlement management” as a precursor to access certification processes.

Using a single term (“entitlement management”) to span both the run-time authorization decisions as well as the necessary legwork of gathering, interpreting, and cleansing entitlements can lead to confusion. The way enterprise customers currently use “entitlement management” works well to describe how legwork is vital to the success of other identity projects.  (I’ll be working on a report this quarter that delves deeper into this.)

I am all for a broader conversation on fine-grained authZ versus entitlement management. And as Ian Yip has pointed out on twitter, identity blog conversations have dropped off a bit and I’d love to stoke the fire a bit.  But we can’t have meaningful conversations without shared definitions. So what’s your take? What do you mean when you say “fine-grained authorization” and “entitlement management?”

(Cross-posted from Burton Group’s Identity blog.)

Two Bonuses for Privacy Professionals

There are plenty of reasons to come to Catalyst. Engaging workshops, great sessions, interesting speakers, the chance to see the entire Identity and Privacy Strategies team on stage with bags on their heads –  you know, the kinds of thing you’d expect.  For those of you with a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) certification, this year we’ve a little something extra for you – continuing education credits. By attending IdPS’ Privacy Risks Get Realtrack, you’ll earn 3.5 hours of continuing privacy education (CPE) credit. Attend SRMS’ Risk Management: Programs You Can’t Afford to Cut and receive another 3.5 hours of credit.

And here’s a second bonus: we are making it easier than ever for you privacy professionals out there who haven’t attended a Catalyst before to attend this year. By registering with promo code IAPP, you’ll be able to attend the conference at $300 off the Early Bird rate.  See you in July!

(Cross-posted from Burton Group’s Identity blog.)

The beginning of the beginning: our privacy report publishes

Over the last 6 or so months, Bob Blakley and I have been doing a lot of listening and thinking about privacy.  To successfully re-launch our privacy coverage, we needed to lay a wide foundation that would serve to support future research.  We needed to provide a meaningful starting point for our customers.  Since our customers’ jobs are not typically focused on privacy, we needed to start with a form of first principles and build outward. 

I’ve learned that it is generally frowned upon to use the second person in our reports – too informal I am told.  Use the blog if you want to address the audience directly.  Normally, I don’t have a problem avoiding the second person, but this report proved to be a challenge.  We had to work hard not to write without using “you.”  And why was that? Privacy discussions are and must be inclusive.  They involve each of us on a far more personal level than a discussion of, say, account lifecycle management.   Cognizant of privacy implications or not, the decisions you make on a daily basis have effects the privacy of your customers and partners.

Because privacy is personal, because it requires concerted behavior throughout the enterprise, discussions about privacy must include everyone.  You.  Me.  Everyone. To guide concerted behavior, in our recently released privacy report, we put forth a Golden Rule as a means of developing and evaluating privacy principles leadings to practices and behaviors:

We protect privacy when we consider the dignity of individuals about whom we know things, and when we use what we know about them only in ways which preserve and enhance that dignity.

This report is by no means the end of our exploration of privacy – it is just the beginning.  We will continuing the conversation this July, at Catalyst North America, in the “Privacy Risks Get Real” track.  We are working hard to ensure that these discussions reflect the inclusive nature of privacy.  We’ll be exploring privacy concerns across multiple domains: from healthcare to higher education.  Finally, to sweeten the deal, we have worked with the International Association of Privacy Professionals to get some of the tracks at Catalyst approved for Continuing Privacy Education credits.  We are looking forward to continuing the privacy conversations with all of you this July!

Speaking of Catalyst, we have special surprise for IdPS blog readers… Since it is Easter egg hunting season, we’ve placed a couple of them on the Catalyst web site. The prize inside is a super discount code to attend Catalyst. To find the eggs, go to the conference web site and do this:

  • Hover (but don’t click) over the “San Diego” icon for 20 seconds

-or-

  • Click and hold on the Catalyst logo and then drag your mouse off and release

Register right away – this discount is limited to 50 users and could disappear at any time!

(Cross posted from the Identity Blog @ Burton Group.)