Following the generally positive assessment of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework (the “Privacy Shield”) by the European Commission further to its first annual review, the Article 29 Working Party (an advisory group consisting of representatives from national data protection authorities together with the European Commission), released its own opinion (the “WP29 Opinion”), which was
EU and U.S. Regulators respond to the Uber breach
The disclosure by Uber of a data breach that occurred in October 2016 has prompted a growing number of regulators to open investigations into the company. According to Bloomberg, the breach (which Uber disclosed on November 21, 2017) involved hackers accessing the names, email addresses and phone numbers of 50 million riders and 7 million drivers and the driver’s license numbers of approximately 600,000 U.S. drivers.
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EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Functions Well, with Scope for Improvement, According to its First Annual Review
On October 18, 2017, the European Commission published its report on the functioning of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework (the “Privacy Shield”), marking the conclusion of its first joint annual review of the regime. The Privacy Shield, which is administered by the International Trade Administration within the U.S. Department of Commerce (“DOC”), provides companies on both sides of the Atlantic with a mechanism to comply with data protection requirements when transferring personal data from the European Union to the United States. To join the Privacy Shield, a U.S.-based organization is required to self-certify to the DOC and publicly commit to comply with the Privacy Shield requirements. While joining the Privacy Shield is voluntary, once an eligible organization makes the public commitment to comply with the Privacy Shield requirements, the commitment will become enforceable under U.S. law.
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Schrems Ruling: Renewed Scrutiny of Standard Contractual Clauses for EU-US Personal Data Flows
Earlier this month, in the latest ruling to emerge from the privacy campaign initiated by activist Max Schrems, the Irish High Court cast fresh doubt on the legitimacy of so-called Standard Contractual Clauses (“SCCs”, also commonly referred to as Model Contracts) as an approved method of ensuring lawful personal data transfers from the European Economic Area (“EEA”) to the United States. In this case, Mr. Schrems, joined by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (“DPC”), objected to Facebook Ireland Ltd. transferring personal data to its parent company in the U.S., Facebook Inc.
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Cybersecurity in the EU – The New Regime under the GDPR and NISD
From May 2018, organizations established or providing services in the EU will be subject to new national and EU-wide cybersecurity legislation, as regulators in EU Member States begin to apply both the General Data Protection Regulation and national legislation implementing the Network and Information Security Directive.