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Emerging Risks Associated with AI and Machine Learning
Today the healthcare industry is being transformed using the latest technology to meet the challenges it is facing in the 21st century. Technology helps healthcare organizations meet growing demands and deliver better patient care by operating more efficiently. As the world population continues to grow and age, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will offer new and better ways to identify the disease and improve patient care.
Ending Use of Seclusion Rooms in Illinois Schools
An article published on November 19, 2019 by ProPublica Illinois and the Chicago Tribune has alerted Illinois lawmakers, parents, and school personnel of the widespread use of seclusion rooms for isolated timeouts. The use of these rooms, which has now been halted by the Illinois State Board of Education (“ISBE”) and Governor J.B. Pritzker, has been legal in Illinois for over twenty years. The students who are most frequently placed in these rooms have an emotional, behavioral, or intellectual disability, and special education advocates are calling for an end to this practice. These rooms were introduced as a legally-sanctioned separation method to prevent students from harming themselves or others, but the investigative article found that students are often unlawfully placed in these rooms for minor behavioral infractions. The report also found that parents and school administrators did not have knowledge of the full scope of isolated time-out use for their students.
Illinois Amends the Cannabis Act. How Does This Affect Employers?
On June 25, 2019 Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed the Illinois Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, “The Cannabis Act” which legalized recreational cannabis beginning January 1, 2020 for adults aged 21 years and older. Illinois residents are permitted to possess 30 grams of cannabis flower, 5 grams of cannabis concentrate, and 500 milligrams of THC contained in a cannabis-infused product. The possession limits are to be considered cumulative. The legalization of adult-use marijuana for recreational purposes in Illinois does not modify the state’s medical cannabis pilot program.
How has the SEC’s Approach to Emerging Fintech Technologies Developed?
This October, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed an emergency action and obtained a temporary restraining order in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against two offshore entities, Telegram Group Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary, TON Issuer Inc. The SEC’s complaint asserted that the two offshore entities were conducting an unregistered offering of securities in the form of digital tokens in the United States and overseas, raising $1.7 billion to finance the businesses, including the development of its own blockchain the “Telegram Open Network” or “TON Blockchain.”
#MeToo Movement and Sexual Harassment Training Requirements for Illinois Employers
By now most people are familiar with the #MeToo movement. The movement began in 2006 by women, specifically Tarana Burke and women of color from low wealth communities, to help survivors of sexual violence. Eleven years after the movement was founded, it exploded during the fall of 2017 when well-known women in the entertainment industry began to use the famous #MeToo hashtag and shared their stories of sexual, discrimination, abuse and harassment. Two and half years later, there has been some change, but not enough. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center, said the biggest impact of #MeToo is that it decreased the stigma associated with sexual abuse and harassment and increased awareness.
Illinois’ Betrayal Bill: Protecting Students from Recurring Violence
Public Act 101-0531 (“Act”) was signed into law on August 23, 2019. The Act is a step that the Illinois legislature has taken to protect students from recurring violence by school employees. It allows the Illinois State Board of Education (“ISBE”) to suspend an educator’s license if they are charged with crimes listed in Section 21B-80 of the Illinois School Code. If the person is acquitted of that crime, however, they would have their license reinstated. Prior to the enactment of this statute, ISBE had to wait until the conclusion of any criminal proceedings to revoke a teaching license if a teacher was charged with a sex crime or Class X felony. In addition to the change in agency authority, the bill also creates several reporting and policy review requirements that will help protect students from violence and school districts from liability.
Tiger King and Zoo Auditing
Libby Meadows Associate Editor Loyola University Chicago School of Law, JD 2021 Like many people during this quarantine, the majority of my days are spent switching through different streaming sites trying to find anything entertaining to watch. Towards the end of March Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness was released on Netflix. It instantly took …
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The Empire State’s New Data Privacy Law
Data privacy and more specifically, user privacy, has become the focus for many in the past year. Some may say that the European Union began this “trend” with the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with California soon following in their footsteps with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). However, seemingly more silently in New York, The Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security, or SHIELD Act has also been created in the interest of the protection of personal information. The SHIELD Act was enacted on July 25, 2019 as an amendment to the General Business Law and the State Technology Law to include breach notification requirements and stronger rules in place to enforce against businesses handling personal information. The SHIELD Act recently went into effect on March 21, 2020.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act Includes Unemployment and Paid Leave Provisions
The Illinois Department of Public Health, local health departments, public health partners throughout Illinois, and federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”), are responding to an outbreak of respiratory illness caused by a novel coronavirus called COVID-19 that was first identified in December 2019 during an outbreak in Wuhan, China. COVID-19 has spread throughout the world, including the United States, since it was detected and was declared a public health emergency for the U.S. on January 31, 2020 to aid the nation’s healthcare community in responding to the threat. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced March 11, 2020 that the spread of coronavirus qualified as a global pandemic.
Revamping America’s Organ Transplant System
In December of 2019, two new rules were proposed by the federal government to increase the number of organ transplants in the United States. As of July 2019, 113,000 Americans sat on the national transplant waiting list. The first proposed rule would change the way Organ Procurement Organizations (“OPO”) report data on the number of organs procured. The second proposed rule creates new legislation to assist living donors after their transplant procedures. Both rules were proposed by the Health and Human Services Department (“HHS”) as a follow up to President Trump’s Executive Order on Advancing American Kidney Health.