Late last week, the California legislature approved five bills intended to clarify the scope and required compliance obligations of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA or the Act). Organizations now have just over three months to determine whether they need to comply with the newly amended CCPA, assess what their obligations are, and implement the … Continue Reading
The Summer 2019 Edition of the quarterly IT & Data Protection Newsletter by Reed Smith Germany has just been released: English version German version In this edition we cover the following topics: ECJ and GDPR: Another decision hitting social media activities by companies EDPB does not opt for changes to EU standard contractual clauses EU … Continue Reading
In its response dated 3 July 2019 (Response; file no. 19/11351, available in German here) to an inquiry by members of the German parliament (Inquiry), the German government took stand on the current draft Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications (ePrivacy Regulation), and particularly on “tracking”. The German government summarises its assessment of the ePrivacy … Continue Reading
Many states are following in the footsteps of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), a law that has led to an increase in the volume of class action privacy litigation and highlighted the importance of enterprise-level management of biometric data (e.g., fingerprint, voiceprint, and retina, facial, or iris image). Organizations that collect and use biometric … Continue Reading
In its recent decision of 11 June 2019 (docket no.: 4 U 760/19, available here), the Dresden Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht Dresden – Court of Appeals) had to decide on claims for damages under Article 82 GDPR with regard to minor violations of the GDPR. Background The defendant, the provider of a social network, had … Continue Reading
The Lower Saxony Data Protection Authority (Lower Saxony DPA) has audited 50 large and medium-sized organizations over the last couple of months regarding their implementation of the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and is currently finalising the audits. On 7 August 2019, the Lower Saxony DPA released the checklist that it used … Continue Reading
Earlier this year, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued a consultation on a draft code of practice for designing age-appropriate access for children accessing online services (Code). The consultation closed on 31 May 2019 but the ICO has recently released an update on its progress in producing the Code. The finalised Code will be informed … Continue Reading
Recently, the Berlin Data Protection Authority (Berlin DPA) announced that it would issue a high administrative fine for violations of the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR). The announcement is available in German on the website of the City of Berlin. The fine will likely be a double-digit million amount of euros. The Berlin DPA … Continue Reading
The UK’s new prime minister, Boris Johnson, has vowed that the UK will leave the EU on October 31, 2019. A unilateral (or “hard”) Brexit poses many privacy and data protection challenges for companies that operate in the UK. Post-Brexit privacy and data protection issues that you need to consider include: how to maintain uninterrupted … Continue Reading
On July 25, 2019, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security (SHIELD) Act (S.5575B/A.5635), which significantly increases obligations for businesses handling private data to notify affected consumers upon experiencing a security breach. Additionally, Governor Cuomo signed the Identity Theft Prevention and Mitigating Services Act (A.2374/S.3582), requiring … Continue Reading
The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) recent $5 billion settlement with Facebook is unprecedented in multiple respects: The $5 billion penalty represents the largest privacy and data security settlement in history – it is almost 20 times larger than the recent Equifax Inc. settlement and dwarfs recent EU data protection enforcement actions. As part of the … Continue Reading
The recently announced multistate settlement between credit reporting company Equifax Inc. and the Attorneys General of 48 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia (the AGs) demonstrates the increasingly active role of state regulators in policing the privacy and security practices of businesses that handle consumers’ personal information. The multistate settlement is part of … Continue Reading
On July 3, 2019 the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published an updated guidance on the use of cookies. Although the guidance confirms requirements of which most data practitioners already comply, it outlines steps for non-compliant companies. Now that the ICO has confirmed its regulatory expectations and detailed immediate enforcement, companies need to take action to … Continue Reading
In a late night session on 28 June 2019, the German Parliament (Bundestag) passed the Second GDPR Implementation Act (2. Datenschutz-Anpassungs-und-Umsetzungsgesetz EU – 2. DSAnpUG-EU; the Act). The Act is available online in German here and here. For more information on the First German GDPR Implementation Act read our blog here. The Act will amend 154 German … Continue Reading
Never one to miss a bandwagon, the European Commission has published three documents to mark the first year of GDPR: a Eurobarometer survey on data protection (Eurobarometer Survey); a multi-stakeholder expert group (MEG Report); and guidance on the free flow of non-personal data within the EU (reported on here). We set out some of the … Continue Reading
On June 20, 2019 the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published an Update Report on real-time bidding (RTB). Following the recent GDPR one-year anniversary of implementation, the ICO has made adtech a focus for the upcoming year. Although RTB has not been made obsolete, the report denotes all current RTB practices as non-compliant with the GDPR, … Continue Reading
The Spring 2019 Edition of the quarterly IT & Data Protection Newsletter by Reed Smith Germany has just been released. We provide updates on cookies and tracking tools, Facebook fan pages, fines under GDPR, influencer marketing, email encryption, platform provider obligations, framing, the new German Trade Secrets Act, and more. The newsletter also includes multiple … Continue Reading
At its eleventh plenary session on 4 June 2019 in Brussels, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) adopted final versions of (1) the Guidelines 1/2019 on codes of conduct and monitoring bodies under Regulation 2016/679, (2) annex 2 to the Guidelines on certification criteria in accordance with Articles 42 and 43 of the Regulation 2016/679 … Continue Reading
By a new decision of sanction rendered on 28 May 2019, the French data protection authority Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL) imposed a €400,000 fine on French property management company Sergic for failure to comply with its obligation to maintain the security of and to limit the storage of personal data. This … Continue Reading
“The internet’s not written in pencil, it’s written in ink.” Advocate General (AG) Szpunar commenced his opinion dated 4 June 2019 in Case C-18/18 (Opinion, available here) with the above quote from the movie The Social Network. In the Opinion the AG analysed the substantive scope of injunctions, in particular if social network providers “may … Continue Reading
The new Regulation (EU) 2018/1807 on a framework for the free flow of non-personal data in the EU (Free Flow of Non-Personal Data Regulation), which we discussed in a previous blog, became applicable from 28 May 2019. Together with the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), the two regulations now provide a “comprehensive framework … Continue Reading
On 7 June 2019, Regulation (EU) 2019/881 on ENISA (the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) and on information and communications technology cybersecurity certification, also known as the Cybersecurity Act, was given the final go-ahead and published in the Official Journal of the European Union. The Cybersecurity Act will come into force on 27 … Continue Reading
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has published a survey of European Economic Area (EEA) regulators setting out General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforcement trends. The report makes for interesting reading. It sets out how: the GDPR’s “one stop shop” mechanism has been bedding down; and the number of data subject complaints and data breach … Continue Reading
May was a busy month for state privacy law updates and amendments. In addition to amendments made by Texas to its breach notification law, both Oregon and Nevada expanded their privacy-related laws this month, while Illinois’s CCPA-like law failed to pass after a variety of amendments related to whether the law would allow for a … Continue Reading
