Tag archives: Privacy

Germany’s Federal Supreme Court provisionally confirms Facebook’s use of personal data is alleged abuse of dominant market position

By Christoph Ritzer (DE) and Tim Schaper on July 16, 2020 Posted in Cybersecurity

Facebook’s extensive collection of user-related data must be put on hold in Germany for the time being following a decision of Germany’s Federal Supreme Court on June 23, 2020. In summary proceedings, the Federal Supreme Court overturned an earlier order of the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf that – pending the outcome of an appeal by Facebook – had suspended the effect of a prohibition order issued by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (FCO) in 2019 restricting Facebook’s collection of data. The FCO’s prohibition order will therefore be effective during Facebook’s ongoing appeal.

The case concerns the terms of use that … 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

Norton Rose Fulbright - Data Protection Report blog

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.

Mic Drop: California AG releases long-awaited CCPA Rulemaking

By David Kessler (US), Jeewon Kim Serrato (US), Susan Ross (US), Anna Rudawski (US) and Max Kellogg (US) on October 11, 2019 Posted in CCPA, Compliance and risk management

Data Protection Report - digital privacy, CCPA and cybersecurity

On October 10, 2019, with just weeks to go until the law goes into effect, the California Attorney General released the long-awaited draft regulations for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

The proposed rules shed light on how the California AG is interpreting and will be enforcing key sections of the CCPA. In the press release announcing the proposed regulations, Attorney General Becerra described CCPA as “[providing] consumers with groundbreaking new rights on the use of their personal information” and added, “It’s time we had control over the use of our personal data.”… Continue Reading

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

Data Protection Report - Norton Rose Fulbright

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

One-Month Countdown to Pass CCPA Amendments Begins

By Jeewon Kim Serrato (US) and Susan Ross (US) on August 12, 2019 Posted in CCPA, Compliance and risk management, Enforcement

On August 12, the California legislature returns after its summer recess. Starting with the Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing today, the legislature will now have approximately a month to continue the markups and send California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) amendments to the Governor’s desk for signature before the September 13 deadline. As previously reported, any amendment that passes from the Senate will likely need to go back to the Assembly since many of them have been marked up significantly by the Senate. Below is a summary of the seven amendments that are moving forward and what they mean for businesses who … 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

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

NT Analyzer Blog Series: Why So Many Cookie Policies Are Broken, Part I – HTML5 LocalStorage

By Steve Roosa (US) on June 25, 2019 Posted in Compliance and risk management, Data breach, NT Analyzer Blog Series

Cookies Are One Piece of a Larger Puzzle

There has been an odd preoccupation with cookies for some time now—to the exclusion of other forms of browser tracking, some of which are much more flexible and more robust in their data collection capabilities than cookies. Despite this fact, these other, non-cookie tracking technologies are often not referenced in privacy policies and cookie policies, even though they are used to “store information” and / or “gain access to information stored in the terminal equipment” for purposes of the ePrivacy Directive and will presumably qualify as personal information under the CCPA as … Continue Reading

Parenting support club Bounty fined in ‘unprecedented’ data breach

By Lara White (UK) on April 18, 2019 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

UK Supreme Court grant Morrisons permission to appeal vicarious liability finding

By Ffion Flockhart (UK), Marcus Evans (UK), Lara White (UK) and Steven Hadwin (UK) on April 17, 2019 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

French court issues decision on legality of Privacy Rules and Terms of Use under data protection and consumer law

By Cécile Auvieux (FR) and Nadège Martin (FR) on April 12, 2019 Posted in Dispute resolution and litigation, Enforcement

Five years after the commencement of legal proceedings against Google by leading French consumer association UFC Que Choisir, the Paris “Tribunal de Grande Instance” (TGI), in a decision dated 12 February 2019, issued its ruling on the legality of the Google+ Terms of Use and Privacy Rules, both with respect to consumer law and personal data protection regulations.… Continue Reading

EU Advocate General issues opinion on consent for cookies and intersection between ePrivacy-Directive and GDPR

By Lara White (UK), Marcus Evans (UK) and Sven Jacobs (DE) on March 27, 2019 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

Companies’ right to privacy

By David Kessler (US) and Susan Ross (US) on February 13, 2019 Posted in Compliance and risk management, Dispute resolution and litigation

On January 3, 2019, the federal trial court in Manhattan issued a preliminary injunction, temporarily halting a new local law aimed at required disclosures by home-sharing platforms, such as Airbnb and HomeAway, to the city. The court granted the preliminary injunction on the basis that the city’s broad requirement that the services turn over detailed customer information on a monthly basis likely violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—infringing the privacy rights of the companies, rather than the users. In contrast, the court ruled that the companies’ Stored Communications Act claim did not meet the standard for a … Continue Reading

Comments at CCPA public forum in Los Angeles highlight tensions between businesses and consumer rights groups

By Jeewon Kim Serrato (US) and Arleen Fernandez (US) on January 31, 2019 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

First multi-million Euro GDPR fine: Google LLC fined €50 million under GDPR for transparency and consent infringements in relation to use of personal data for personalized ads

By Marcus Evans (UK), Lara White (UK) and Cécile Auvieux (FR) on January 25, 2019 Posted in Compliance and risk management, Cybersecurity, Enforcement, Regulatory response

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

Transition period under New York Cybersecurity Regulation ends March 1, 2019

By Kathleen Scott (US), Susan Ross (US) and Tristan Coughlin* (US) on January 7, 2019 Posted in Compliance and risk management, Cybersecurity, Enforcement, Fintech, General, Vendor management and transactions

The two-year transitional period under the New York State Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) Cybersecurity Regulation, 23 NYCRR 500 (the “Regulation”), will expire on March 1, 2019, with the final remaining requirement becoming effective. Entities covered by the Regulation that utilize third party service providers, which include not only banks and insurers, but also other financial services institutions and licensees regulated by the DFS, will be required to implement third-party risk management programs by March 1.… Continue Reading

Pennsylvania Supreme Court holds common law duty for employers extends to protecting sensitive employee information

By Andrea D'Ambra (US) and Max Kellogg (US) on December 7, 2018 Posted in Compliance and risk management, Data breach, General, Regulatory response

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

Vicarious liability in the data breach context – bad news for UK employers?

By Steven Hadwin (UK), Mya Joel (UK), Marcus Evans (UK), Catrina Smith (UK) and Amanda Sanders (UK) on October 29, 2018 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

Norton Rose Fulbright – cyber law firm of the year nomination

By Chris Cwalina (US), Ffion Flockhart (UK) and Steven Hadwin (UK) on August 29, 2018 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

California Consumer Privacy Act: GDPR-like definition of personal information

By Chris Cwalina (US), Jeewon Kim Serrato (US), Steve Roosa (US) and Tristan Coughlin* (US) on August 27, 2018 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