TechLaw

Vincent I. Polley was elected to the American Law Institute earlier this month. Quite an honor for the former chair (2001-2005) of the ABA Cyberspace Law Committee. Polley is a partner at Dickinson Wright PLLC, where he works out of the firm's Bloomfield Hills office and heads up its Information Security & Technology Law practice.

Polley also edits MIRLN, a monthly compendium of information technology law news items, which he makes available free on the Web and as an e-mail newsletter through the American Bar Association. Polley has been publishing MIRLN, a great resource for cyberlaw developments, for nearly 10 years.

If you're the sort of person who thinks "self-regulation" is an oxymoron, today's news about a massive data breach in the United Kingdom is reason to be thankful.  Reportedly, the British government misplaced digital media containing detailed personal information on 25 million individuals. Privacy advocates in the United States believe that a massive data breach of the sort disclosed today is necessary to stimulate action on pending federal data breach notification bills.

Maybe and maybe not. The United Kingdom already has strict data protection laws -- more rigorous than anything that could pass the current Congress -- and yet  these laws were unable to prevent the carelessness of a few government officials. On the other hand, one might argue that, since today's data breach episode demonstrates the near-impossibility of adequately protecting databases of personal information, perhaps the government should not be creating them in the first place.