International

Subscribe to International via RSS

The CJEU (the European Union Court of Justice) has handed down a decision which makes clear that general and indiscriminate retention of electronic communications is unlawful. National legislation of each European Member State should ensure that mass surveillance only occurs where it is strictly necessary in order to combat serious crime as well as terrorism and meets other stringent requirements.

The references were made by the Swedish and UK courts and concerned the interpretation of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive (Directive 2002/58/EC, as amended by Directive 2009/136/EC) (the “Directive”), in light of the rights granted by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (the “Charter”), particularly, the right to privacy (Article 7) and the right to protection of personal data (Article 8), and the decision of the CJEU in Digital Rights Ireland (C‑293/12 and C‑594/12).

On Friday, the Article 29 Working Party issued official guidance relating to the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR (which we’ve covered in previous posts here and here). The Article 29 Working Party is comprised of representatives of the various EU Member States’ data protection authorities (DPAs), so this marks the first time that the DPAs have revealed their thoughts on how they plan to interpret and enforce specific GDPR provisions.  This is welcome news for companies that, until this point, have been left to figure out compliance strategies without any indication as to how some of the newer concepts the GDPR introduces will operate in practice when the Regulation begins to apply in 2018.

DataGuidance spoke with Cécile Martin, Special International Counsel at Proskauer Rose LLP, at the International Association of Privacy Professionals’ Conference in Brussels in November 2016. Cécile discussed the passing of the Digital Republic Bill and its implications for organizations, as well as the latest developments regarding employee monitoring in France and the upcoming changes with the GDPR.

On October 19, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that dynamic IP addresses may qualify as “personal data” under EU privacy law. As we covered here on the blog a few months ago, this decision is significant because it clarifies that companies that collect, store, process, and/or transfer dynamic IP addresses belonging to EU users may have to treat them in accordance with the stringent restrictions that EU law imposes on the handling of personal data. As a refresher, an IP (short for “Internet protocol”) address is a series of numbers allocated to a specific device that identifies a device and allows it to access an electronic communications network, such as the Internet.  IP addresses can be either “dynamic” or “static”; dynamic IP addresses, which are more common, change every time the device connects to the Internet, while static IP addresses remain constant and do not change every time the device re-connects.

TalkTalk, a major UK telecoms company, has been fined £400,000 for a data breach after they were hacked. This is a record fine given by the ICO (the UK’s data protection authority).  Significantly the fine was imposed after a change of leadership this summer when Elizabeth Denham (previously the Information…

Yesterday, the European Commission adopted the EU-US Privacy Shield, a framework designed to replace the invalidated Safe Harbor program. In theory, the Privacy Shield offers its adherents a relatively simple, straightforward way to legally transfer personal data from the EU to the US.  In reality, however, the Privacy Shield is likely to face legal challenges that may hinder its ability to serve as a reliable means of legal transfer, at least for the immediate future.  

Proskauer Counsel Cécile Martin was recently interviewed by DataGuidance’s “Privacy This Week” covering new guidance issued by the French data protection authority (‘CNIL’) on June 15, 2016. The guidance highlights the main changes in relation to the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’). On June 16, 2016, CNIL launched an online…