Tag archives: data protection

Singapore’s Public Consultation on proposed changes to the Singapore Personal Data Protection Act

By Wilson Ang (SG), Stella Cramer (SG), Jessica Paulin (SG) and Jeremy Lua (SG) on May 21, 2020 Posted in General

On 14 May 2020, the Singapore Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) and the Personal Data Protection Commission of Singapore (PDPC) announced a public consultation (the Public Consultation) on the draft Personal Data Protection (Amendment) Bill (the Draft Bill) and related amendments to the Spam Control Act (SCA). The Public Consultation will take place from 14 May 2020 to 28 May 2020.

The Draft Bill is the culmination of a series of consultations between the MCI, PDPC and public and industry stakeholders over the past three years. In this post, we briefly … Continue Reading

California AG Issues Significant Changes to Draft CCPA Regulations as of March 2020

By Jeewon Kim Serrato (US) and Susan Ross (US) on April 9, 2020 Posted in CCPA

Data Protection Report - Norton Rose Fulbright

On February 7, 2020, and again on March 11, 2020, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) issued revisions to the proposed California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) regulations, and there are some surprises in both the additions and in the deletions. For the CCPA regulations to become effective on July 1, the final regulation text must be filed with the Secretary of State by May 29.

Click here for the text of modified regulations. Our white paper with a summary of the changes is available for download here.… Continue Reading

NYDFS Requires COVID-19 Plans by April 9

By Susan Ross (US) and Kathleen Scott (US) on April 2, 2020 Posted in Compliance and risk management, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Dispute resolution and litigation, Enforcement, General

Norton Rose Fulbright - Data Protection Report blog

On March 10, 2020, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) issued guidance to all of its regulated institutions engaged in virtual currency business activity, requiring them to have plans for preparedness to manage the possible operational and financial risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. NYDFS requires the plans to be submitted by Thursday, April 9, 2020.… Continue Reading

Adventures in cyber litigation: Frozen crypto-assets and the role of cyber insurance

By Charlie Weston-Simons (UK), Rahul Mansigani (UK) and Steven Hadwin (UK) on February 27, 2020 Posted in Cybersecurity

A few weeks ago, we blogged about the decision of the English High court in AA v. Persons Unknown & Ors.

Given the level of interest in the case, we have prepared a deeper-dive into the facts and the implications of the decision, with a focus on the important role played in the case by cyber insurance. This is set out below.… Continue Reading

Personal data protection in the time of coronavirus (Covid-19)

By Barbara Li (CN) and Bohua Yao (CN) on February 25, 2020 Posted in Compliance and risk management

Outbreak of the coronavirus and personal data privacy

The fast-spreading coronavirus (Covid-19) has infected thousands of people in China and in over 20 other countries. This coronavirus outbreak, originating in Wuhan, a large city located in the central region of China, has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the World Health Organization.… Continue Reading

The CNIL releases draft practical guidance on cookies consent

By Nadège Martin (FR) and Cécile Auvieux (FR) on February 4, 2020 Posted in Compliance and risk management

The CNIL has published draft recommendations on how to obtain consent when placing cookies. This is following the publication of its revised “Guidelines on the implementation of cookies or similar tracking technologies” which was published in July 2019 (see our article here).

The objective of the recommendations is to provide stakeholders with practical guidance and illustrative examples. These recommendations are neither exhaustive nor binding and data controllers are free to consider other practical measures as long as they comply with the revised rules as provided by the CNIL in July 2019. The CNIL also provides a number of “good … Continue Reading

Interim proprietary injunction granted over bitcoin cyber extortion payment

By Ffion Flockhart (UK), Charlie Weston-Simons (UK), Steven Hadwin (UK) and Ally Corbridge (UK) on January 23, 2020 Posted in Cybercrime

An interim proprietary injunction has been granted by the English High Court over a bitcoin ransom payment paid to a third-party wallet.… Continue Reading

Turkish Data Protection Board announces extension of VERBİS registration deadline – once again

By Ekin Inal (TR), Ece Sürmen (TR) and Ecem Naz Boyacıoğlu (TR) on December 31, 2019 Posted in Regulatory response

The Turkish Data Protection Board (“Board”) announced the extension of VERBİS registration deadline until June 30, 2020 for:

Turkish data controllers with more than 50 employees annually or whose annual total financial statement exceeds TL 25,000,000 (approx. USD 4.2 million), and
Data controllers located abroad.

Russian Data Localization law: now with monetary penalties

By Vera Shaftan (RU) on December 20, 2019 Posted in Compliance and risk management

On 2 December, a new law was introduced in Russia to enable substantial administrative fines to be imposed on organizations and individuals that fail to comply with data localization requirements. Both legal entities and responsible managers (e.g. the Data Protection Officer or the CEO) can be fined under the new regime.… Continue Reading

First multi-million GDPR fine in Germany: €14.5 million for not having a proper data retention schedule in place

By Christoph Ritzer (DE) and Natalia Filkina (DE) on November 12, 2019 Posted in Enforcement

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).… Continue Reading

German Data Protection Authorities publishes a new GDPR model for fines

By Christoph Ritzer (DE) and Natalia Filkina (DE) on October 28, 2019 Posted in Enforcement

The German Datenschutzkonferenz (DSK), the joint body of the German data protection authorities, has just published the model which it intends to use to calculate fines pursuant to Article 83 of the GDPR.… Continue Reading

Data protection and cyber risk issues in arbitration – dealing with regulation, cyber attacks and hacked evidence

By Pierre Bienvenu (CA) and Ben Grant (UK) on September 20, 2019 Posted in Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Data breach, Dispute resolution and litigation, General

The GDPR has significantly altered the landscape of data protection. Its broad scope and potentially severe penalties have forced those who hold and process data to take note of its provisions. In certain instances, that will include many in the international arbitration community, such as arbitral institutions. In parallel, cyber attacks and instances of hacking in the arbitration context have brought cyber security issues to the fore.

As a result, data protection and cyber security are now hot topics in international arbitration. A majority of respondents in the 2018 Queen Mary International Arbitration Survey listed “security of electronic communications and … Continue Reading

Deadline extended for compulsory registration on Data Controller registry

By Ekin Inal (TR) on September 6, 2019 Posted in Compliance and risk management

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.

ICO joins other data protection authorities in issuing statement on Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra project

By Lara White (UK), Shiv Daddar (UK) and Hemin Hazar (UK) on August 22, 2019 Posted in Compliance and risk management

On 18 June 2019, Facebook announced plans to launch a new blockchain enabled cryptocurrency called Libra.… Continue Reading

Turkey’s data protection legislation on data controller registry to impact data controllers outside of Turkey

By Ekin Inal (TR) on August 20, 2019 Posted in Regulatory response

Obligations

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.

Data controllers which fail to fulfil this obligation may be subject to an administrative fine of an amount between TL 20,000–1,000,000 (approximately USD 3,600-180,000). Such fines will be issued at the discretion of the Data Protection Board and will be determined based on the … Continue Reading

The CNIL publishes new guidelines on cookies and other similar technologies

By Nilofar Moini Shabestari (FR) and Nadège Martin (FR) on August 13, 2019 Posted in Compliance and risk management

Data Protection Report - digital privacy, CCPA and cybersecurity

On 4 July 2019, the CNIL published new guidelines on cookies and other similar technologies, repealing its 2013 cookie guidance in order to align its position with the GDPR’s new requirements on consent. These guidelines will be supplemented during the first quarter of 2020 by sectoral recommendations aimed at providing practical guidance to stakeholders on how to collect consent.… Continue Reading

Website operators joint controllers with third-party plugin providers

By Lara White (UK), Natalia Filkina (DE) and Shiv Daddar (UK) on August 12, 2019 Posted in Enforcement

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 to the relevant websites. In relation to these processing activities, the website operators must inform their website visitors about the data processing activities for which they act as a joint controller with Facebook, must establish a lawful basis for these processing activities and, where applicable, … Continue Reading

Cyber law firm of the year nomination

By Chris Cwalina (US), Ffion Flockhart (UK) and Steven Hadwin (UK) on July 29, 2019 Posted in General

We are pleased to report that Norton Rose Fulbright has been shortlisted for cyber law firm of the year at the 2019 Insurance Insider Cyber Rankings Awards. Many thanks to everyone who has voted for us so far. The winner will be determined from the results of a wide-ranging survey of insurers and brokers and will be announced on 20 September 2019. We encourage our insurer and broker clients and contacts to respond to the survey if they have not already done so.… Continue Reading

FTC to levy unprecedented $US5bn fine against Facebook

By Andrea D'Ambra (US) and Max Kellogg (US) on July 16, 2019 Posted in Data breach, Regulatory response

On Friday, July 12, 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that Federal Trade Commission and Facebook reached a settlement to resolve Facebook’s privacy issues surrounding the Cambridge Analytica disclosure discovered last year. The settlement imposes a US$5 billion dollars on the tech giant, which represents roughly 9% of Facebook’s total yearly revenue and is the largest civil and privacy fine ever imposed by the FTC. The fine largely surpasses the FTC’s previous imposed fine in a privacy action, when the FTC fined Google US$22.5 million to settle claims it misrepresented privacy assurances to Safari users.… Continue Reading

German M&A Deals: Share Deals Remain the Only Secure Way to Transfer All Customer Data

By Christoph Ritzer (DE) on July 8, 2019 Posted in Compliance and risk management

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 … Continue Reading

New CNIL €400,000 fine for data security breaches and non-compliance with data retention period under the GDPR

By Nadège Martin (FR) and Nilofar Moini Shabestari (FR) on July 8, 2019 Posted in Data breach, Enforcement

Following the now famous €50m fine imposed on Google LLC in January 2019,[1] the French Data Protection Authority (the CNIL) published a decision taken on 28 May 2019[2] imposing a fine of €400,000 on SERGIC, a company specialised in real estate development, purchase, sale, rental and property management.… Continue Reading

New Chinese Measures for Personal Data Cross-Border Transfer Security Assessments

By Barbara Li (CN) and Bohua Yao (CN) on July 1, 2019 Posted in Cybersecurity, Data breach

Introduction

On June 13, 2019 Measures for Personal Data Cross-Border Transfer Security Assessments (Draft for Comment) (Measures) were issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China, along with an invitation for submissions to be made as part of a public consultation. The Measures lay down stricter requirements in relation to cross-border transfers of personal data with the intention to better safeguard internet users’ rights, public interests and national security.

The Measures set out a number of general requirements and implementing provisions for aspects of a network operator’s assessment obligation, assessment standards and reporting procedures. They also introduce specific requirements for contracts … Continue Reading