Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On November 22, 2022, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (“NTIA”) announced that it filed comments with the Federal Trade Commission that call for new limits on how companies can collect and use personal information about consumers. The comments were filed in response to the FTC’s request for public comment on its Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on commercial surveillance and lax data security practices.

On December 6, 2022, the California Privacy Protection Agency (“CPPA”) announced that it will hold a virtual public meeting to discuss the status of the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (“CPRA”) rulemaking process and other topics. Anticipated topics for discussion include:

On November 25, 2022, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (“DPC”) released a decision fining Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) €265 million for a 2019 data leak involving the personal information of approximately 533 million Facebook users worldwide.

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) recently published a package of detailed guidance and checklists for direct marketing activities. The ICO’s new webpage on direct marketing now includes various resources, including specific guidance for SMEs, business-to-business marketing, and organizations using the marketing services of data brokers, as well as direct marketing FAQs and checklists, and a training module for businesses.

On November 21, 2022, Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) announced updated practices designed to protect the privacy of young people on Facebook and Instagram, including default privacy settings for new accounts, measures to limit unwanted interactions with adult users, and a tool to limit the spread of teens’ intimate images online.

On November 22, 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) determined in a preliminary ruling that the general public’s access to information on beneficial ownership constitutes a serious interference with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data, enshrined in Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights (the “Charter”).

On November 15, 2022, the Italian Supreme Court held that an Italian court or competent data protection authority has jurisdiction to issue a global delisting order. A delisting order requires a search engine to remove certain search results about individuals if the data subject’s privacy interests prevail over the general right to expression and information, and the economic interest of the search engine. The case was brought by an Italian individual, who requested a worldwide delisting order, concerning all versions of the search engine, due to potential damage to the applicant's professional interests outside of the European Union.

On November 30, 2022, the UK government confirmed that the Network and Information Systems (“NIS”) Regulations 2018 (“NIS Regulations”) will be strengthened to protect essential and digital services against cyber attacks. The changes bring providers of outsourced IT and managed service providers (“MSPs”) into scope of the NIS Regulations. The announcement comes in response to a public consultation held in January this year.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) recently released a draft of the agency’s Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals (“CPGs”) for critical infrastructure in the United States. The CPGs provide a common set of fundamental cybersecurity practices to guide critical infrastructure entities in measuring and improving their cybersecurity maturity.  

On November 21, 2022, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) at Hunton Andrews Kurth filed comments on the Federal Trade Commission’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“ANPR”) on commercial surveillance and data security. The ANPR sought public comment on, among other things, whether the FTC should implement new rules addressing the ways in which companies collect, aggregate, protect, use, analyze and retain consumer data.