In commemoration of the world data protection day (held annually on the 28th January), the European Commission (the Commission) published a statement on the EU data protection law particularly since the coming into force of the GDPR on the 25th May 2018. Citing the Facebook Analytica case and other recent data breaches as references, the […]
English Posts
News on data protection law
Dear Readers, this year we would like to introduce an additional concept to our blog in order to provide regular information also to our English-speaking readers. To do so we will upload in regular intervals (every 1-2 months) short overviews of interesting news, changes and decisions in matters of data protection. If you would like […]
Italian Antitrust ( AGCM) fines Facebook for 10 Million Euros.
At the end of last year, the Italian Authority for the competition in the marked has closed the investigations running since April 2018 against Facebook Ireland and its parent company Facebook Inc. for alleged violations of the consumers code by issuing a fine to the company of 10 Million Euros. According to the Italian Authority, […]
VIOLATION OF CHILDREN’S PRIVACY – Record COPPA Enforcement against Oath, Inc.
In December 2018, the office of the New York Attorney-General issued the largest ever US penalty for the violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), to Oath Inc, the Verizon-owned company formerly known as AOL. In addition to the penalty amount of 4.95 Million USD, Oath Inc, agreed to adopt extensive COPPA compliant […]
Give me all your data: US CLOUD Act & Australian “Decryption” Bill vs. the GDPR
Nowadays crimes are more and more committed or at least facilitated by a smartphone or other computing device. That is why digital evidence in form of data is essential in almost all criminal investigations.[1] But that does not mean that the collection of such evidence is straightforward and effortless. Law enforcement authorities (LEAs) face, among […]
Spain: The Organic Law 3/2018 of 5 December on the Protection of Personal Data and the Guarantee of Digital Rights has been approved.
With 93% parliamentary support, the new Law will enter into force the day after its publication in the Official State Gazette (Boletín Oficial del Estado BOE). The new Law adapts Spanish law to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and introduces novelties through the development of certain matters contained in the GDPR. The following are […]
Portuguese Data Protection Authority Imposes 400,000 € Fine on Hospital
The Barreiro Hospital in Portugal was fined 400,000 € by the Portuguese Data Protection Authority CNPD (Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados) for incompliancy with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by not separating access rights to patents’ clinical data. The public sector hospital had granted access to patients’ clinical data via their system […]
GDPR-Complaint against the “online behavioral advertising” industry
“Advertising is expensive, no advertising is even more expensive.” (Paolo Bulgari, Businessman and Designer of jewelry). According to this principle, programmatic buying and providing of advertising according to your behavior on the Internet, is becoming more and more important. Google also uses this concept of so- called “Programmatic Advertising” for its product campaigns. The private […]
Online Training Data Protection
Trainings and awareness measures are not only an important step in the implementation of data protection requirements, but, especially for larger organizations, oftentimes a particular challenge. We would like to offer you a guideline in the format of a 15-minute online training. What exactly is it about? In order to meet the statutory training requirement, […]
The UK DPA imposes a fine to an online leading mother and baby club
At the beginning of August 2018, the UK Information Commissioner (ICO) issued a fine of £ 140.000 To “Lifecycle Marketing (Mother and Baby) ” Ltd or “LCMB”, also known as “Emma´s Diary” for the illegal collection and sale of personal data of more that 1 million people to a marketing company hired by a political […]
Italy integrates GDPR in national privacy legislation
The Italian Council of Ministers has on 8th August 2018 approved a decree which integrates GDPR into Italian Privacy law. The Decree will have to be published to the Italian Official Gazette to come into force. The GDPR will overwrite part of the Italian Privacy Code (decreto legislativo n. 196/2003), it reformulates the duties and […]
Facebook’s response to the ECJ decision on Fanpages. Is this decision being adequately implemented?
As result of the latest European Court of Justice decision regarding the administration of Facebook fanpages, Facebook has recently published an Agreement for data processing activities that aims to comply with the said ruling.(Available here). This article contains an analysis from a data protection law perspective that will determine if the solution implemented by Facebook […]
“US must comply with the EU-US Privacy Shield”
According to the 12 June 2018 European Parliament press release, the Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE Committee) has called on the European Commission to suspend the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield on the grounds that it fails to provide sufficient data protection for EU Citizens. In the press release, the MEPs stated that data transfers between the EU […]
Are companies ready to deal with a high level of scrutiny? – Lessons learned from the Morrisons Case
The purpose of this article is to summarize the lessons that a company can learn from the Morrisons Case with regard to the level of protection that can be considered as “sufficient” and “adequate” for the protection of the personal data of their employees. [1] In our daily practice, our clients are more often than […]
Privacy Impact Assessments: A software tool by the French DPA
The French Data Protection Authority, Commission Nationale Informatique et Liberte (CNIL), released a tool to support data controllers to be compliant with the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The tool is aimed at automating the obligatory assessments of risk posed by data protection activities to the rights and freedoms of data subjects according to […]