News

On April 7, 2016, the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice Melchior Wathelet has sent his advisory opinion to the European Court of Justice, which is called to issue a ruling between the Dutch wblog GeenStijl.nl and Playboy. Case C‑160/15 GS Media BV v Sanoma Media Netherlands BV. In 2011 GeenStijl published a link to some pirated Playboy […]

For the first time in the UK, on February 16, 2016, a court (the High Court of Justice Chancery Division, Master Matthews) approved the use of predictive coding in e-disclosure. Pyrrho Investments Limited v MWB Property Limited, [2016] EWHC 256 (Ch). Noting that there were no English precedent (¶32), the Master relied on some US […]

On March 2, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)  brought its first data security enforcement action, acting as federal data security regulator to ensure that financial companies and service providers adequately secure consumers’ information. The CFPB, a federal agency – whose creation was authorized by the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in […]

The Department of Justice has accessed the iphone of San Bernardino attacker Syed Rizwan Farook and therefore no longer needs Apple’s assistance to unblock the phone. In the San Bernardino attack, fourteen people were killed and 22 injured. The attackers died in a police shooting; their personal phones were destroyed, but Farook’s work phone survived. […]

Several class actions have been filed in recent years against companies that had their database compromised as a consequence of a data breach. The class usually consists of consumers whose information was stolen in the breach. The problem that plaintiffs have faced in the majority of these actions is lack of standing. Indeed, in most […]

February 2, 2016 – After the expiration of the DPAs’ deadline of January 31, 2016, for the start of enforcement of the Schrems’ decision (see here), the EU Commission announces that it had a deal with the US Government for a new “Safe Harbor”. See more here February 3, 2016 – Article 29 Working Party […]

According to a source, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has revised its privacy rules on dealing with data that it receives from the National Security Agency (NSA) regarding Americans’ international communications (international emails, texts and phone calls). This is the so called “Section 702 data” because it is collected by the NSA under the […]

On March 10, 2016, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regulating how broadband Internet service providers can use and share customer data. According to a Fact sheet that the FCC released and that summarizes the NPRM, the proposed rules deal specifically with consent to use/sharing of data, breach notification […]

The Article 29 Working Party (WP29), on February 29, 2016, issued a statement on the Commission’s draft adequacy decision and the legal documents of the Privacy Shield. While welcoming the draft decision and those documents, the WP29 warns about the need to carefully analyze the material. In particular, the WP29 — divided in subgroups — […]

The Bundeskartellamt (the German AntitrustAuthority) initiated a proceeding against Facebook Inc., USA (the Irish sub sidiary of the company) and Facebook Germany GmbH, Hamburg on allegations that the tech giant abused its dominant position in the social market networks market by way of imposing certain terms of service on the use of data. The Antitrust […]