Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On June 23, 2016, the UK held a referendum to decide upon its continued membership in the European Union. The outcome has resulted in the decision for the UK to withdraw its membership from the European Union. Despite the result, data protection standards are unlikely to be affected.

On June 22, 2016, the Bavarian Data Protection Authority (“DPA”) issued a short paper on certifications under Article 42 of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). The GDPR will become effective on May 25, 2018.

This paper is part of a series of papers that the Bavarian DPA will be issuing periodically on specific topics of the GDPR to inform the public about what topics are being discussed within the DPA. The DPA emphasizes that these papers are non-binding.

Hunton & Williams announces its participation with the Global Legal Group in the publication of the third edition of the book The International Comparative Legal Guide to: Data Protection 2016. The guide provides corporate counsel and international practitioners with a comprehensive worldwide legal analysis of the laws and regulations relating to data protection. Bridget Treacy, partner and head of the UK privacy and cybersecurity practice, served as the contributing editor of the guide and co-authored the UK chapter.

On June 15, 2016, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (“NTIA”) announced that its multistakeholder process to develop a code of conduct regarding the commercial use of facial recognition technology had concluded with the group reaching a consensus on a best practices document. As we previously reported, the NTIA announced the multistakeholder process in December 2013 in response to the White House’s February 2012 privacy framework, which directed the NTIA to oversee the development of codes of conduct that specify how the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights applies in specific business contexts.

TCCWNA. The very acronym evokes head scratches and sighs of angst and frustration among many lawyers in the retail industry. You have probably heard about it. You may have even been warned about it. And you may currently be trying to figure out how best to minimize your risk and exposure this very moment. But what is it and why has virtually every retailer been hit with a TCCWNA class action demand letter or lawsuit in the past few months? And why are most retailers scrambling to update the terms and conditions of their websites?

On June 16, 2016, the French Data Protection Authority (“CNIL”) launched a public consultation on the four priority topics identified by the Article 29 Working Party (“Working Party”) in its February 2016 action plan for the implementation of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

On June 9, 2016, the Belgian Privacy Commission (the “Belgian DPA”) published its Annual Activity Report for 2015 (the “Annual Report”) highlighting its main accomplishments.

On June 15, 2016, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) jointly issued final guidance on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (“CISA”). Enacted in December 2015, CISA includes a variety of measures designed to strengthen private and public sector cybersecurity. In particular, CISA provides protections from civil liability, regulatory action and disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) and other open government laws for “cyber threat indicators” (“CTI”) and “defensive measures” (“DM”) that are shared: (1) among businesses or (2) between businesses and the government through a DHS web portal. Congress passed CISA in order to increase the sharing of cybersecurity information among businesses and between businesses and the government, and to improve the quality and quantity of timely, actionable cybersecurity intelligence in the hands of the private sector and government information security professionals.

According to Bloomberg BNA, the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework could be approved by the European Commission in early July. The Privacy Shield is a successor framework to the Safe Harbor, which was invalidated by the European Court of Justice in October 2015. Certain provisions of the Privacy Shield documents, previously released by the European Commission on February 29, 2016, have been subjected to criticism by the Article 29 Working Party, the European Parliament and the European Data Protection Supervisor. According to Bloomberg BNA, the previously released draft adequacy decision, one of the Privacy Shield documents released on February 29, 2016, is expected to be modified.

On June 8, 2016, the Federal Trade Commission announced that Practice Fusion, an electronic health records company, agreed to settle FTC charges that the company misled consumers about the privacy of doctor reviews submitted to the company.