On November 14, 2018, the UK government and the EU agreed upon the text of a draft Withdrawal Agreement in relation to the UK’s impending exit from the European Union on March 29, 2019. The draft Withdrawal Agreement provides for a transition period under which the UK will remain subject to a number of its EU membership obligations, during the period starting when the UK leaves the EU on March 29, 2019 to the end of the transition period on December 31, 2020. The draft Withdrawal Agreement provides the following in relation to data protection law: Continue Reading UK and EU Draft Withdrawal Agreement

On November 12, 2018, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP published a legal note on the ePrivacy Regulation and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. It was written for CIPL by Dr. Maja Brkan, assistant professor of EU law at Maastricht University, David Dumont, Counsel at Hunton Andrews Kurth, and Dr. Hielke Hijmans, CIPL’s Senior Policy Advisor.  Continue Reading CIPL Publishes Legal Note on the ePrivacy Regulation and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

On November 9, 2018, the European Commission (“the Commission”) submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (“NTIA”) in response to its request for public comments on developing the administration’s approach to consumer privacy. Continue Reading EU Commission Responds to NTIA Request for Comment on Developing the Administration’s Approach to Consumer Privacy

On November 8, 2018, Privacy International (“Privacy”), a non-profit organization “dedicated to defending the right to privacy around the world,” filed complaints under the GDPR against consumer marketing data brokers Acxiom and Oracle. In the complaint, Privacy specifically requests the Information Commissioner (1) conduct a “full investigation into the activities of Acxiom and Oracle,” including into whether the companies comply with the rights (i.e., right to access, right to information, etc.) and safeguards (i.e., data protection impact assessments, data protection by design, etc.) in the GDPR; and (2) “in light of the results of that investigation, [take] any necessary further [action]… that will protect individuals from wide-scale and systematic infringements of the GDPR.” Continue Reading Privacy Advocacy Organization Files GDPR Complaints Against Data Brokers

On November 7, 2018, the Data Protection Authority of Bavaria for the Private Sector (the “BayLDA”) issued a press release describing audits completed and pending in Bavaria since the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) took force. Continue Reading BayLDA Publishes Review on Audits

On November 6, 2018, the French Data Protection Authority (the “CNIL”) published its own guidelines on data protection impact assessments (the “Guidelines”) and a list of processing operations that require a data protection impact assessment (“DPIA”). Read the guidelines and list of processing operations (in French). Continue Reading CNIL Publishes DPIA Guidelines and List of Processing Operations Subject To DPIA

On October 30, 2018, ATA Consulting LLC (doing business as Best Medical Transcription) agreed to a $200,000 settlement with the New Jersey Attorney General resulting from a server misconfiguration that allowed private medical records to be posted publicly online. The fine was suspended to $31,000 based on the company’s financial condition. Read the settlement. Continue Reading Medical Transcription Vendor Agrees to $200,000 Settlement with New Jersey Attorney General

On October 23, 2018, the parties in the Yahoo! Inc. (“Yahoo!”) Customer Data Security Breach Litigation pending in the Northern District of California and the parties in the related litigation pending in California state court filed a motion seeking preliminary approval of a settlement related to breaches of the company’s data. These breaches were announced from September 2016 to October 2017 and collectively impacted approximately 3 billion user accounts worldwide. In June 2017, Yahoo! and Verizon Communications Inc. had completed an asset sale transaction, pursuant to which Yahoo! became Altaba Inc. (“Altaba”) and Yahoo!’s previously operating business became Oath Holdings Inc. (“Oath”). Altaba and Oath have each agreed to be responsible for 50 percent of the settlement.

Continue Reading Yahoo! Agrees to Settle Data Breach Class Actions with $50 Million Fund and Credit Monitoring

On October 17, 2018, the French data protection authority (the “CNIL”) published a press release detailing the rules applicable to devices that compile aggregated and anonymous statistics from personal data—for example, mobile phone identifiers (i.e., media access control or “MAC” address) —for purposes such as measuring advertising audience in a given space and analyzing flow in shopping malls and other public areas. Read the press release (in French). Continue Reading CNIL Details Rules On Audience and Traffic Measuring In Publicly Accessible Areas

Effective November 2, 2018, a new Ohio breach law will provide covered entities a legal safe harbor for certain data breach-related claims brought in an Ohio court or under Ohio law if, at the time of the breach, the entity maintains and complies with a cybersecurity program that (1) contains administrative, technical and physical safeguards for the protection of personal information, and (2) reasonably conforms to one of the “industry-recognized” cybersecurity frameworks enumerated in the law. Continue Reading New Ohio Law Creates Safe Harbor for Certain Breach-Related Claims