On 13 December, the European Commission launched the process to adopt an adequacy decision for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (EU-US DPF). The draft decision – available here – addresses the concerns raised by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in its Schrems II decision of July 2020. These concerns centred around … Continue reading
As reported in our previous blogpost, on 7 October 2022, the US White House published an Executive Order on enhancing safeguards for United States signals intelligence activities (EO). In this blogpost, we set out the key points to note, including the background to the EO, what it does and does not do and what organisations … Continue reading
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has finally published the UK government’s long-awaited response to the consultation on the future of the UK data protection regime. The government set out very high level principles for a Data Reform Bill in the Queen’s Speech in May. If legislation is to be passed in this … Continue reading
On May 25th 2022, the European Commission published a series of questions and answers on the SCCs to be used between controllers and processors within the European Economic Area (EEA), and the SCCs to be used for transfers to countries not considered adequate by the European Commission (Third Countries) (the Q&As). The text of the … Continue reading
On 25 March the EU Commission (Commission) and United States (US) announced that they had agreed in principle on a new “Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework” (TADPF) to foster trans-Atlantic data flows and address the concerns raised by Schrems II. We briefly discuss the implications below. The announcement was very high level and short on detail. … Continue reading
Following nine months of assessment of the UK’s data protection laws (including the rules on access to data by public authorities), the European Commission has today published its draft decision on the adequate protection of personal data by the United Kingdom. The draft decision can be found here. The draft decision is welcome news to … Continue reading
On 16 July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) published its decision in the landmark case Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland Ltd, Maximilian Schrems and intervening parties, Case C-311/18 (known as the Schrems II case). While the EU-US Privacy Shield (Privacy Shield) has been completely invalidated, the Standard Contractual Clauses … Continue reading
On 29 July 2019, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its judgement on Case C-40/17 (the “Fashion-ID” case). In its ruling, the ECJ held that operators of websites embedding Facebook’s “Like” button act as data controllers jointly with Facebook in respect of the collection and transmission to Facebook of the personal data of visitors … Continue reading
On January 23rd 2019, the European Commission adopted its adequacy decision in relation to the export of personal data from the European Union (EU) to Japan. Concurrently, Japan has adopted an equivalent decision in relation to the export of personal data from Japan to the EU. Such mutual decision is the result of two-years of … Continue reading
On the 7th August 2017, the UK’s Government Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport issued a Statement of Intent (the Statement) outlining its planned reforms of the UK’s data protection laws which are to be implemented by the Data Protection Bill (the Bill). The Statement anticipates the UK’s departure from the EU and makes … Continue reading
On May 25, 2016, Austrian law student Max Schrems issued a press release stating that he has been informed that the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) is planning to refer a question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) as to whether the EU model clauses remain a valid data transfer mechanism … Continue reading