EDPB Provides Clarity and Raises New Questions with Publication of Final Guidelines on the Territorial Scope of the GDPR
Following an extensive public consultation, the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) has published a final version of its guidelines on the territorial scope of the GDPR (“Guidelines”). This comes almost one year since the draft guidelines were originally published. Please read this blog together with our previous blog on the draft guidelines, as this blog addresses only the key differences between the draft guidelines and the Guidelines. (more…)
German DSK Issues GDPR Fining Methodology Guidelines
Recently, the Association of German Data Protection Authorities (“Datenschutzkonferenz” or “DSK”) issued guidelines setting a GDPR fining methodology (“Fining Methodology”). GDPR enforcement across the EU has picked up over the past year. This Fining Methodology has been issued at the time of a significant increase in GDPR enforcement action across the EU. The European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) reported a total of 281,088 national enforcement actions being initiated as of May 22, 2019 (approximately one year after the GDPR’s entry into application). Since then, data protection authorities across the EU have been initiating enforcement and fines on a daily basis. In particular, in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) has issued two notices of intention to fine of €114m and €215m for failure to implement appropriate data security measures.
European Data Protection Board Adopts Data Protection by Design and by Default Guidelines
On 13 November 2019, the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) adopted guidelines on the GDPR’s data protection by design and by default principle (“Guidelines”). The Guidelines provide further guidance into the technical and organizational measures and safeguards that data controllers must take into account when designing their processing activities. The EDPB encourages early consideration of data protection by design and by default principles (“DPbDD”) and considers DPbDD to be at the forefront of GDPR compliance. Data controllers, processors and technology providers should consider re-assessing their processing operations and products against the standards put forward in the Guidelines.
EDPB Stakeholder Event Highlights Continued Confusion over Data Subject Rights Compliance under the GDPR
On 4 November 2019, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), the EU-wide data supervisory authority, held a stakeholders’ event on data subject rights under the GDPR. At the event, various stakeholders including e.g., corporates and NGOs, raised a number of issues including, for example:
Website Cookie Consent: Is the Cookie Starting to Crumble?
Two important decisions have recently occurred relating to website operators’ use of cookies. First, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “CJEU” or the “Court”) has issued its judgment in Planet49, a case which looked at the standards of consent and transparency for the use of cookies and similar technologies in the context of the e-Privacy Directive and the GDPR and determined that opt-out consent, by way of a pre-ticked checkbox, was insufficient to obtain GDPR-standard consent for non-essential cookies. Second, the Spanish data protection authority, AEPD, fined Vueling, a Spanish airline, €30,000 for forcing visitors to its website to accept the use of non-essential cookies on their device in order to continue viewing the website.
We set out below our summaries and key takeaways from both decisions which help to highlight the latest approach of both the courts and European data protection regulators in relation to cookie consent.
Where Does Privacy Go From Here: California, EU and Indian Data Privacy Laws and Global Compliance Programs
This article first appeared on Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence.
The summer of 2018 may be regarded as a pivotal time in the history of data privacy laws. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect in May 2018, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) was signed into law in June 2018 (and comes into effect on January 1, 2020), and a draft of India’s Personal Data Protection Bill (India DP Bill) was released in July 2018 (and is now under review by India’s government).
These developments, and more generally, the recent proliferation of data privacy laws around the world (notably, in Australia, China, Brazil, Hong Kong, and Singapore) represent a compliance challenge for many multinational organizations.
UK ICO Issues New Draft Data Sharing Code of Practice
The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) has recently issued a draft version of its statutory code of practice for sharing of personal data between controllers under the GDPR and the UK Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA”) (the “Draft Code”) which provides a number of practical recommendations which controllers should take into account when sharing personal data.
European Commission Publishes Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence
The High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (“AI HLEG”), an independent expert group set up by the European Commission in June 2018 as part of its AI strategy, has published its final Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) (the “Guidelines”).
These Guidelines form part of a wider focus by the Commission on AI, with President-elect of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen commenting most recently on July 16, in her proposed political guidelines, that: “In my first 100 days in office, I will put forward legislation for a coordinated European approach on the human and ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence…”.
Another UK ICO GDPR Privacy Fine of £99m ($123m) Proposed Just One Day After the Largest Ever
Just a day after the ICO provided notice of its intention to fine British Airways £183m ($228m) over a separate breach (please see our blog post here), on Tuesday, July 9, 2019, the ICO released another statement of its intention to fine Marriott International, Inc. (“Marriott”) over £99m ($123m) in relation to a security incident affecting the Starwood reservation database which Marriott had acquired in 2016 and discovered in November 2018. The statement came in response to Marriott’s filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that the ICO intended to fine it for breaches of the GDPR.
UK ICO Publishes New Guidance on the Use of Cookies and Similar Technologies
On 3 July 2019, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) published new guidance on cookies and similar technologies (“Guidance”) in conjunction with a new blog post: “Cookies – what does ‘good’ look like?” which aims to provide “myth-busting” advice on common cookies uncertainties. You can find a full copy of the new guidance here and a link to the ICO’s blog post here. With its new Guidance, the ICO has formally recognised the stricter standards of consent and transparency now in force under the GDPR.