What in the world went wrong?

In these uncertain economic times, everyone has questions. But reliable answers are hard to find. How did the crisis develop? How is it affecting financial institutions? What are governments doing and, most important, how can companies survive?

Protiviti has just released the second edition of its Global Financial Crisis Bulletin, titled "The Current Financial Crisis: Frequently Asked Questions." This document provides answers to some of what Protiviti believes are among the most commonly asked questions about the financial crisis.

Click here for this useful document.

<< Top of Page

Typosquatting

Here´s another potential threat to your business: typosquatters, who register a domain name that is almost the same as yours, and capture visitors who have either misspelled your URL or used an incorrect top-level domain (e.g., .com instead of .ca). Click here for the Wikipedia article on the subject.

What´s the attraction of typosquatting? If a site has visitors, even ones who end up there in error, a typosquatter can make a tidy sum selling advertising space. And now Benjamin G. Edelman, a Harvard Business School professor, has filed a class-action lawsuit against Google who, he alleges, profits from ad sales to typosquatters. In effect, Edelman is accusing Google and typosquatting companies of profiting from the misuse of other companies´ trademarks. For more information on this suit, click here.

Volume II - Corporate Governance in Finance & Accounting PolicyPro (FAPP) includes a policy on Copyrights and Trademarks that covers domain name registration. For more information on FAPP, click here.

<< Top of Page

Legal risk management checklists for charities and NPOs

Carters Professional Corporation, a full-service law firm with a focus on charities and not-for-profit organizations, has recently revised and reissued comprehensive legal risk management checklists for both charitable and not-for-profit organizations.

And First Reference is pleased to announce that we are including the not-for-profit checklist in policy 1.05 - Legal and Regulatory in Release 2008-02 of Not-for-Profit PolicyPro (NPPP), which will be mailed very soon. For more information on NPPP, click here.

<< Top of Page

Privacy and biometric data collection

Employers are increasingly turning to biometric technology to track attendance, and this has, in turn, led to an increase in employee complaints about the invasiveness of this technology, and its impact on privacy rights.

A recent paper by Cappone D´Angelo and Tina Giesbrecht of McCarthy Tétrault LLP discusses two recent reports from the Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner and provides tips to help employers understand their privacy obligations related to using biometric technology in the workplace.

Click here for a link to this useful article.

<< Top of Page

Confiscation of data at U.S. border

Under new rules, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol can seize travelers´ hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, video and audio tapes, books, pamphlets and other written materials at the border and hold them for unspecified periods.

Accordingly, anyone who crosses the U.S. border for either business or pleasure should prepare to be without his or her laptop, cell phone, PDA, Blackberry, iPod, MP3 and other electronic equipment and must take steps to ensure that any critical data on these devices is properly backed up.

For more information, click here for a recent article by Cyndee Todgham Cherniak, counsel in the International Trade Group of Lang Michener LLP in Toronto.

If your company has employees who travel to the U.S., you should consider creating a policy that mandates that any critical data contained in their portable electronic devices be properly backed up before departure. And for data backup policies, you should refer to Chapter 11 - Backup and Disaster Planning in Information Technology PolicyPro (ITPP). For more information about ITPP, and to sign up for a 30-day, no-obligation trial click here.

<< Top of Page

Three new policies added to ITPP

We´re pleased to announce that we´ve added three new policies to Information Technology PolicyPro (ITPP) with Release 2008-04 (December). The new policies are as follows:

• 13.04 - Email Acceptable Use: To minimize the risks associated with using electronic mail
• 13.05 - Internet Access and Acceptable Use: Processes and controls to minimize the risks associated with providing Internet access to company IT users
• 13.06 - Clear and Locked Screen: To ensure that confidential information displayed on a computer screen is not available for viewing by unauthorized persons while the computer is unattended

These policies have been added to chapter 13 - User Responsibilities, which also contains the following policies:

• 13.01 - System Access and Acceptable Usage
• 13.02 - Data Access and Data Protection
• 13.03 - Passwords

And we´ll continue to add new policies to this important chapter throughout 2009. For more information about ITPP and to sign up for a 30-day no obligation trial, click here.

<< Top of Page

About Inside Internal Control

Editor: Colin Braithwaite, Managing Editor, PolicyPro.

Please do not reply to this Email.

Inside Internal Control is a complimentary service published by First Reference Inc. and is sent to you monthly. Each issue provides headlines and summaries of news that affects internal controls and policies in Canada.

Please forward Inside Internal Control to your colleagues.

Please send any comments or suggestions about Inside Internal Control to the editor. For information about the Internal Control Library, click here. For more information about First Reference, including our terms of use, disclaimer, privacy policy and other legal matters, visit www.firstreference.com.

This publication is written for informational purposes only and should NOT be relied upon as legal advice or opinions. The reader should always obtain legal advice from a qualified lawyer or other qualified professional, which will be responsive to the case or circumstance of the individual. Please note that the content provided in this Bulletin or any content contained in or made available through any third party website linked to from this newsletter, is provided "as is" without representations or warranties of any kind. All representations and warranties in respect of Content or Third Party Content, express or implied, including, without limitation any representations to warranties or conditions regarding accuracy, timeliness, completeness, non-infringement, merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose are hereby disclaimed.

Copyright ©2008, First Reference Inc. All Rights Reserved.