Compliance Stuff

In a significant shift in labor law enforcement, states and localities across the United States are increasingly treating wage theft not merely as a civil infraction, but as a criminal offense . This trend in certain jurisdictions reflects a growing movement that the intentional denial of wages—whether through unpaid overtime, minimum wage violations, or misclassification of workers—should be prosecuted with the same seriousness as other forms of theft. A Shift Toward Criminalization Historically, wage and hour violations have been addressed through civil penalties, administrative fines, or private lawsuits. Enforcement agencies, such as the federal and state departments of labor, have traditionally exercised discretion in issuing civil penalties, liquidated damages, or other remedies for wage underpayments. However, a growing number of states and localities are now imposing criminal penalties for willful or repeated wage violations, with penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment. F...

Key Takeaways Use of Artificial Intelligence in hiring and promotion is undergoing regulatory scrutiny in California Tools that screen resumes, rank candidates, or assess interview responses can lead to legitimate claims of bias or discrimination Employers must ensure AI tools are transparent, explainable, and tested for adverse impact on protected groups The EEOC and the Civil Rights Department may view reliance on opaque (non-transparent) or unvalidated (not tested or verified for accuracy or bias) AI as a violation of anti-discrimination laws F ederal and California agencies have increased their focus on how AI and automated decision-making tools are being used in hiring, promotions, and employment screening processes. Employers using such technologies may be exposed to discrimination claims if these tools lead to disparate treatment or impact on certain races, national origins, genders, ages, or other protected classes, whether intentional or not. With AI increasingly integrated i...

  A new report published by the software company Egress this month,   Phishing Threat Trends Report ,  is a must-read. It outlines the proliferation of phishing toolkits on the dark web (that basically allows any Tom, Dick, and Harry Hacker) to launch successful phishing campaigns, how “commodity phishing attacks are overwhelming security teams,” the anatomy of advanced persistent threats, the most prolific phishing tactic in 2024, and how AI-assisted attacks are becoming more challenging to detect. Presently, I would like to focus on one piece of the Egress report that is near and dear to me:, the latest phishing tactics. Phishing continues to be one of the most prevalent c auses of security incidents and data breaches . There are some fascinating statistics in the report for all of us to process and internalize. First, the “most phished day of the year so far” was June 10th, 2024, and the most common time to receive a phishing email is at 12:37 p.m. This means that we ...