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On October 30, 2019 the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit – Berlin DPA) issued a €14.5 million fine on a German real estate company, die Deutsche Wohnen SE (Deutsche Wohnen),  the highest German GDPR fine to date. The infraction related to the over retention of personal data. For the first time, the Berlin DPA applied the new calculation method for GDPR fines issued by the German Datenschutzkonferenz recently (see our recent post).

Obligations

We previously reported that Turkey’s data protection legislation (TDPL) requires data controllers to notify the Turkish DPA of their processing activities. Unless exempt from the requirement, all data controllers (individuals and legal entities) who process personal data in Turkey must be registered with the Turkish DPA’s Register of Data Controllers Information System (VERBİS), prior to processing any personal data.

The German data protection authorities, acting as the German data protection conference (Datenschutzkonferenz), recently published guidance on how to transfer customer data in an asset deal. The guidance runs through various scenarios. In most cases, a bulk transfer of all customer data is not permitted. Further, the guidance makes no mention of, or allowance for, the transfer of marketing permissions which – as these are generally on an opt-in consent basis in Germany – means a buyer cannot rely on the seller’s marketing consents in an asset sale. Therefore, the position in Germany remains that it is highly advisable to structure M&A deals as share deals when selling the target together with customer data databases relating to individuals.

On February 29, 2016, the European Commission published the documents comprising the new EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, the adoption of which we previously covered on our blog. In the Commission’s opinion, the new framework reflects the requirements set forth by the European Court of Justice in the Schrems ruling, which invalidated the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor framework. The Commission’s proposed adequacy decision holds that “the United States ensures an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the Union to organisations in the United States under the EU-US Privacy Shield”.