With less than a month to go until the UK is due to leave the EU (at 11pm GMT/12pm CET on 29 March 2019), there is still much uncertainty as to whether, and if so how, the UK will exit the EU (commonly dubbed “Brexit”). In light of this uncertainty we outline what will happen, and what should be considered, depending on how things play out especially given the important votes due to take place within the UK Parliament this week.

In an opinion issued on June 22, 2010, the EU Data Protection Authorities (Article 29 Working Party) clarified the legal framework applicable to online behavioral advertising – an activity that is becoming a hot topic for discussion as its popularity grows. Among other things, the Article 29 Working Party clearly took the position that it is incumbent upon advertising network providers to “create prior opt-in mechanisms requiring an affirmative action by the users indicating their willingness to receive cookies and the subsequent monitoring of their surfing behavior for the purposes of serving tailored advertising.”

On February 16, 2010, the EU Article 29 Working Party published Opinion 1/2010, in which it clarified the definitions of “data controller” and “data processor” as those designations are used within the European Data Protection Directive. The Working Party’s opinion is welcome guidance, as such designations are often difficult to apply in practice, especially given the increasing complexity of globalization, organizational differentiation, and information and communication technologies.

On January 5, 2010, the EU Article 29 Data Protection Working Party published an opinion finding that Israel provides an "adequate" level of data protection under the EU Data Protection Directive. Should the European Commission ("EC") adopt the Article 29 Working Party’s recommendation (and there is no reason to think that it would not), Israel will join the ranks of the select few countries that the EU has deemed to have an "adequate" level of data protection, such as Argentina, Canada, and Switzerland (notably, the United States is not on this list).

With social networking sites proliferating across international boundaries, privacy and data protection concerns are becoming increasingly relevant. With these concerns in mind, the Article 29 Working Party, an independent European advisory body on data protection and privacy, adopted an opinion on online social networking on June 12, 2009.

As noted

When a company is considering using cloud computing in its IT infrastructure, there are some privacy issues that need to be addressed.

While the value of cloud computing certainly holds much promise, companies wishing to make the leap into the cloud would be well advised to consider the potential privacy issues.  Cloud computing, in its essence, is the migration or outsourcing of computing, hardware and storage functions to a third-party service provider, which hosts applications on the Internet through linked servers located worldwide.  Cloud computing has captured the attention of IT professionals because it offers the appealing option of reducing a company’s computer infrastructure and placing it in the hands of a vendor who can perform a company’s computing needs more cheaply and efficiently than the company can itself.