Information Law Journal, Vol. 6, Issue 2, Autumn 2015 From the article The emergence of mega-suite vendors, more use of the cloud, increases in data breach frequency and cost and big data privacy impacts make healthcare IT (HIT) vendor arrangements more complex, and solid agreements with HIT vendors, more important than ever. Addressing key legal […]
On July 1, 2015, the Rechtbank Den Haag (the Dutch District Court of the Hague) found the practice of the Dutch government to intercept Dutch law firms illegal. A Dutch law firm, Prakken d’Oliveira, accused the Dutch government of spying on the law firm’s privileged conversations. The CCBE intervened in the process to highlight the […]
On July 28, 2015, the UK Supreme Court granted permission to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision in Vidal-Hall -v- Google. In March 2015, the Court of Appeal gave the leeway for UK data subjects to sue Google in England for cookies violations even if there was no pecuniary loss. More information on the ‘Safari Workaround’ […]
The Bank of England recently wrote to insurance companies with a questionnaire designed to help the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) get a sense of the sector’s approach to cyber security. The questionnaire also includes questions from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The questionnaire is just the latest in a line of initiatives from regulators designed […]
On June 25, 2015, the advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“ECJ”) filed his opinion in the case 230/14, Weltimmo s.r.o. v Nemzeti Adatvédelmi és Információszabadság Hatóság (“Weltimmo”). According to the Advocate General, in order to determine which EU data protection law applies, authorities shall consider where the companies’ activity […]
The European Commission and the US are finalizing the content of a commercial data-sharing agreement, which will affect the way businesses store and transfer data to third parties. A final deal is expected later this summer. Sources: here and here. The agreement is supposed to reform the ‘Safe Harbor’ agreement in order to ensure adequate levels […]
On July 28, 2015, the Hamburgische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit, the Hamburg Data Protection Authority (“DPA”) adopted a decision against Facebook’s policy forbidding users to utilize pseudonyms for their accounts. The German DPA issued an injunction against Facebook Ireland Ltd for infringement of the German Telemedia Act (Telemediengesetz), and the Personal ID Act (Personalausweisgesetz). […]
On July 21, 2015, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that pocket-dialed conversations happening because the person operating the device fails to take simple precautions to prevent such exposure cannot be considered private. In this case, Mr. Huff – Chairman of the Kenton County, Kentucky (CVG), Airport Board – inadvertently placed a pocket-dialed call to […]
On July 23, 2015, the Constitutional Council (Conseil Constitutionnel) validated most of the Loi Renseignement containing several mass surveillance provisions (see here), which had been suspected of being unconstitutional. The Constitutional Council censored a couple of provisions of the law. Among others, it specifically deemed the procedure for “operational emergency” manifestly disproportionate with reference to the right […]
July 21, 2015 “Right to be forgotten” in Russian data protection law has passed all stages of approval Dear Sir or Madam, This letter is to inform you that on July 14, 2015 Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, has signed the law on implementation of the “right to be forgotten” (hereinafter the […]