Posted in Enforcement
On 12 April, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) fined Bounty, a pregnancy and parent support club, £400,000 for illegally sharing personal data belonging to more than 14 million people. As the contravention took place just before the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force, the fine was issued under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA).… Continue Reading
Posted in Data breach
The UK Supreme Court has confirmed that permission has been granted to Morrisons for it to appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Morrison Supermarkets PLC v Various Claimants [2018] EWCA Civ 2338.… Continue Reading
Posted in Dispute resolution and litigation
On March 21, 2019, Advocate General Szpunar released his opinion on the use of consent for the processing of personal data and for the use of cookies pursuant to the ePrivacy-Directive and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The opinion includes several key points on whether consent is ‘freely given’ pursuant to the ePrivacy-Directive and the GDPR and also gives insight on what constitutes ‘informed consent.’… Continue Reading
Posted in CCPA, Compliance and risk management
This is the Data Protection Report’s seventh blog post in series of CCPA blog posts that will break down the major elements of the CCPA. Stay tuned for additional posts on the CCPA.
On January 25, 2019, the California Attorney General’s Office held a public forum in Los Angeles to solicit feedback on the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) as it prepares to draft regulations which must be adopted on or before July 1, 2020. CCPA provides new rights to California consumers with respect to the collection and use of their personal information. The CCPA authorizes the Attorney … Continue Reading
On January 21,2019 the French data protection authority (the CNIL) imposed a major fine on the U.S. Google entity, Google LLC. It follows two complaints filed as soon as the GDPR came into force by two consumer rights associations, None of Your Business and La Quadrature du Net.
We focus here on four key aspects of the decision: (a) why the Irish Data Protection Commission (Irish DPC) did not take the case; (b) the consent mechanism failings; (c) the privacy policy failings; and (d) the amount of the fine.… Continue Reading
Posted in Regulatory response
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 dialogue and negotiations between both parties.
According to a joint statement issued by Věra Jourová (Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality) and Haruhi Kumazawa (Commissioner of the Personal Information Protection Commission of Japan), “these mutual adequacy findings create the world’s largest … Continue Reading
Posted in Compliance and risk management
On 25 November 2018 the UK Government and the EU agreed a draft withdrawal agreement which set out the terms of the UK’s departure from the EU and made a political declaration on the framework for their future relationship, as provided for under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union (Withdrawal Agreement). The purpose of the Withdrawal Agreement is to set out the terms of the UK’s departure from the EU and provide a transition period during which a more nuanced and ambitious future relationship can be agreed.
Had the UK Parliament approved the Withdrawal Agreement, it … Continue Reading
On November 21, 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court broke new ground by holding that employers have a legal duty to take reasonable care to safeguard its employees’ sensitive personal information from cyberattacks. Dittman v. UPMC, 2018 Pa. LEXIS 6072199 (Pa. Nov. 21, 2018).… Continue Reading
Posted in Data breach
The Court of Appeal has upheld a decision of the High Court holding that an employer can be vicariously liable for data breaches caused by the actions of an employee, even where the employee’s actions were specifically intended to harm the employer. This decision is significant as it means a company can be held liable to compensate affected data subjects for loss caused by a data breach, even where the company has committed no wrongdoing and regardless of the employee’s motive.… Continue Reading
Posted in General
We are grateful to our clients and industry contacts for nominating us as cyber law firm of the year at the 2018 Insurance Insider Cyber Rankings Awards. The winner will be determined from the results of a wide-ranging survey of insurers and brokers and will be announced on September 21, 2018.… Continue Reading
Posted in CCPA
This is the Data Protection Report’s third blog post in a series of CCPA blog posts that will break down the major elements of the CCPA which will culminate in a webinar on the CCPA in October. This blog focuses on the CCPA’s broad definition of Personal Information. Stay tuned for additional blogs and information about our upcoming webinar on the CCPA.
The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA” or the “Act”) sets a new precedent with its sweeping definition of Personal Information (“PI”). The CCPA defines “[p]ersonal information” as any information that “identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being … Continue Reading
This is the Data Protection Report’s second post in a series of blog posts that will break down the major elements of the CCPA which will culminate in a webinar on the CCPA in October. This blog focuses on covered entities. Stay tuned for additional posts and information about our upcoming webinar on the CCPA.
California’s new privacy law, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) grants California residents extensive new privacy rights. One of the more significant aspects of the law however, is the number of business entities to which it applies. Companies around the world must comply with the … Continue Reading
Posted in Regulatory responseData protection laws in Asia continue to be introduced and updated. One of the most recent developments in South East Asia is in Thailand. On 22 May 2018, the Thai Cabinet approved in principle a revised draft of Thailand’s first personal data protection act (Draft Act). This Draft Act is currently under consideration by the Council of State.
Thailand currently does not have any specific law regulating data protection. The Office of the Prime Minister first published the Draft Act in 2014. The Draft Act has undergone several rounds of changes and this article aims to give a high level … Continue Reading
Several U.S. states have recently introduced and passed legislation to expand data breach notification rules and to mirror some of the protections provided by Europe’s newly enacted General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). See our previous blog posts on GDPR here and here. Like their European counterparts, these state laws are intended to provide consumers with greater transparency and control over their personal data. The California and Vermont laws, in particular, go beyond breach notification and require companies to make significant changes in their data processing operations. See our earlier post on the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) here.… Continue Reading
The wait is finally over—this Friday the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force. For many readers of this post, a huge amount of work will have been done in recent months in building up to compliance with the new regime. However, the challenges of GDPR certainly don’t end on the date this law goes into implementation. We have shared below some interesting points that we’ve seen arising recently, all of which relate to how things are likely to develop from today onwards, including enforcement predictions, challenges related to operationalizing data subject access procedures, and how … Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) plans to issue an advance notice of proposed rulemaking this November on potentially sharing HIPAA breach settlements with victims.… Continue Reading
The UK NIS Regulations (implementing the NIS Directive) come into force in the UK today (10 May 2018). These Regulations have received limited press attention, in part due to the emphasis that has been placed on GDPR implementation. However, the NIS Regulations represent a significant change in the legal environment relating to cybersecurity in the UK.… Continue Reading
On March 8, 2018, the Ninth Circuit issued its highly anticipated decision in In re Zappos.com, Inc., finding that allegations of future risk of identity theft from a data breach are sufficient to confer standing. This decision fuels an ongoing circuit split, pitting the D.C., Sixth, Seventh and now Ninth Circuits against the Second, Fourth, and Eighth Circuits over whether the mere exposure of personal information – without actual identity theft or credit/debit card fraud – establishes Article III standing.… Continue Reading
Posted in Compliance and risk management
The German Data Protection Authorities (DPAs, acting as the German Data Privacy Conference, Konferenz der unabhängigen Datenschutzbehörden des Bundes und der Länder) recently published templates for the records of processing activities for controllers (Art. 30 para. 1 GDPR) and processors (Art. 30 para. 2 GDPR) together with a corresponding guidance document. This guidance was expected to be released earlier as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will take effect in less than a hundred days and organisations must meet its requirements from 25 May 2018. However, the guidance does not contain significant new information and mainly confirms … Continue Reading
Posted in Compliance and risk management
The GDPR will come into force exactly four months from Thursday. In preparation, the European Commission has released a new website with extensive guidance on GDPR implementation, together with a Fact Sheet containing Q&As on the GDPR. While much of the guidance is already known to privacy professionals, there are new insights as well.… Continue Reading
On 1 March 2017, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published a paper on big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data protection (replacing its early paper published in 2014). Although the paper is described as a “discussion paper”, it makes a number of recommendations that those involved in big data projects would be well advised to incorporate into their projects, and it firmly rejects suggestions that either the existing data protection framework or the GDPR cannot be applied in this context.
The paper works through the implications of big data against the core data protection principles; it … Continue Reading
Posted in Data breach, General, Regulatory responseOn January 10, 2017, the EU Commission published a package of documents on the EU’s data economy strategy, including e-privacy, data protection and the “European Data Economy.” The Commission documents, published in the context of the Commission’s digital single market (“DSM”) initiative announced in May 2015, illustrate again the strong links between the EU’s digital regulatory strategy, data protection, intellectual property and antitrust policy, notably including the Commission’s preliminary report on its sector inquiry on e-commerce, also launched in May 2015.… Continue Reading
Recent comments by FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez suggest that a company’s failure to take preventative measures to address ransomware could result in an enforcement action by the FTC, even if a company is never actually subject to a ransomware attack. The Chairwoman’s comments reflect a growing concern among US government agencies regarding ransomware and may foreshadow additional FTC action, building upon a developing trend of US regulators engaging in pre-breach enforcement action.… Continue Reading
Posted in Regulatory response
The Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems (known as the NIS Directive) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on July 19, 2016. Member States will have until May 9, 2018 to implement this Directive into national laws and a further six months to identify “operators of essential services.”
Summary of the NIS Directive
The NIS Directive is the first comprehensive piece of EU legislation relating to the 2013 EU Cybersecurity Strategy. Its objective is to achieve a high common level of security of network and information systems across the EU through improved … Continue Reading
