Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On November 26, 2020, the Conference of the German Data Protection Authorities (Datenschutzkonferenz, the “DSK”) issued a press release with conclusions from their 100th anniversary meeting.

On November 26, 2020, the French Data Protection Authority (the “CNIL”) announced that it imposed a fine of €2.25 million on Carrefour France and a fine of €800,000 on Carrefour Banque for various violations of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and Article 82 of the French Data Protection Act governing the use of cookies.

On November 23, 2020, the Dutch District Court of Midden-Nederland (the “Court”) determined that the concept of a legitimate interest for processing is broader than simply being an interest derived from law, overturning a fine by the Dutch data protection authority (the “Dutch DPA”).

On November 24, 2020, the European Parliament endorsed the new directive on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers (the “Collective Redress Directive”). The Collective Redress Directive requires all EU Member States to put in place at least one effective procedural mechanism allowing qualified entities to bring representative actions to court for the purpose of injunction or redress. The Collective Redress Directive was presented in April 2018 by the European Commission and is part of the European Commission’s New Deal for Consumers. The Collective Redress Directive was proposed as a response to several scandals related to breaches of consumers’ rights by multinational companies.

On November 24, 2020, a multistate coalition of Attorneys General announced that The Home Depot, Inc. (“Home Depot”) agreed to pay $17.5 million and implement a series of data security practices in response to a data breach the company experienced in 2014. The $17.5 million payment will be divided among the 46 participating states and the District of Colombia. We previously reported on a settlement Home Depot reached in 2017 to resolve a putative class action brought by financial institutions impacted by the 2014 data breach.

On December 3, 2020, Hunton Andrews Kurth will host a webinar on Machine Learning Hot Topics: Negotiating Global Data Protection and IP Terms. Join our Hunton speakers, Brittany Bacon, Tyler Maddry and Anna Pateraki, as they discuss key data protection and intellectual property considerations when drafting and negotiating global agreements involving machine learning (“ML”) services and engaging in new ML practices.

On November 17, 2020, the Senate passed by unanimous consent H.R. 1668, the Internet of Things (“IoT”) Cybersecurity Improvement Act (the “IoT Bill”). The House previously passed the IoT Bill in September after negotiations with the Senate to resolve differences in their respective bills. The IoT Bill now heads to the President’s desk for signature.

On November 18, 2020, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) at Hunton Andrews Kurth submitted its response to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (“NPC”) of the People’s Republic of China on the Draft Personal Information Protection Law (“PIPL”).

On November 12, 2020, Chief Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois rejected Apple Inc.’s (“Apple’s”) motion to dismiss a class action alleging its facial recognition software violates Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”). Judge Rosenstengel agreed with Apple, however, that the federal court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over portions of the complaint.

On November 12, 2020, somewhat in the shadow of the new standard contractual clauses for data transfers to recipients outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”), the European Commission also adopted draft standard contractual clauses to be used between controllers and processors in the EEA (“EEA Controller-Processor SCCs”).