Blogs

by Jonathan Armstrong, Gayle McFarlane, André Bywater As anticipated the Article 29 Working Party (often known as WP29), a group of the EU’s data protection regulators met in Brussels today to discuss the European Commission’s Privacy Shield scheme, the proposed replacement for Safe Harbor. As we had anticipated in our earlier alerts WP29 decided that in their view […]

After the October 6, 2015, European Court of Justice’s annulment of the Safe Harbor decision of adequacy (Maximilian Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner), the European Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) gave businesses until January 31, 2016, for the start of enforcement of the Schrems’ decision (see here). The Safe Harbor Scheme had been used for almost 15 years as the […]

Insurer’s obligations under a cyber insurance E&O are not triggered by an allegation of intentional misconduct (and other glitches in coverage) Nathan M. Crystal Travelers Property Casualty Co. of America v. Federal Recovery Services, Inc., 103 F. Supp. 3d 1297 (D. Utah 2015), was a declaratory judgment action in which the court found that the […]

Internet-of-Things (IoT) (or internet-of-everything as it is often interchangeably called-) is a buzzword and it is all over. At present, the news is more technological than legal. Nonetheless, the IoT triggers some worrisome legal issues, among which data collection, data security, and invasion of privacy are among the most compelling. Actually, these issues are imposing because […]

On February 23, 2016, the European American Chamber of Commerce (EACC) hosted an interesting EU-US Privacy Roundtable with Privacy Activist Max Schrems, founder of the group Europe v. Facebook. The panel started by providing a brief overview of the developments in data privacy laws. It also explained the judiciary path that brought to the judgment […]

On February 8, 2016, the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) issued a formal notice to Facebook to comply within three months with the French Data Protection Act. According to CNIL, among other violations, Facebook is breaching French Data Protection Laws by transferring “personal data to the United States on the basis of Safe Harbour, although the […]

On February 3, 2016, Article 29 Working Party (WP29) met to discuss the consequences of the European Court of Justice’s ruling of October 6, 2015, which declared the old Safe Harbor framework invalid (see here for more information). WP29 welcomed the recent EU-U.S. announcement that the “Privacy Shield” will substitute the old “Safe Harbour” (see here). However, it […]

On February 2, 2016, the EU Commission and the U.S. government approved the EU-U.S. “Privacy Shield”. This new framework reflects the requirements set out by the European Court of Justice in its ruling of October 6, 2015, which declared the old Safe Harbor framework invalid (see here for more information). The new Privacy Shield will […]

On January 28, 2016, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amended version of the Judicial Redress Act (Bill H.R. 1428). The Bill gives to citizens of certain countries a right to pursue their privacy rights in US courts. To be true, the Bill empowers the Attorney General to identify those countries whose citizens enjoy privacy protection. The amendment is the […]

A California law [1] that went into effect January 1, 2016 aims to protect the privacy of consumers who may be unaware of the extent to which the “internet of things” has invaded their living rooms or bedrooms. Assembly Bill 1116 targets smart televisions that have voice recognition features, and requires manufacturers of those TVs to […]