As part of an ongoing European tour, President Obama has met with several EU political leaders in Brussels today. After the meeting, Herman van Rompuy, President of the EU, stated that the US has agreed to review the Safe Harbor. There are no further details known at this stage but most likely the changes will be … Continue Reading
Speaking at Berkeley’s Online Tracking Workshop today, Françoise Le Bail, Director-General of the European Commission’s DG Justice (the leading department regarding the EU data protection reforms) confirmed the European Commission’s vision that the EU needs stronger penalties in order to ensure effective enforcement of European data protection rules. Ms. Le Bail said that European privacy … Continue Reading
Recent events in the European Parliament and European Council demonstrate that concerns over the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Agreement are continuing to mount, and reform or even revocation of the Safe Harbor Agreement remains a possibility. Today, Covington published a client alert that discusses recent developments involving the Safe Harbor Agreement and the potential impact of … Continue Reading
In 2009, Directive 2002/58/EC, the so-called ePrivacy Directive, was amended. The deadline for EU Member States to implement the revised Directive in their national laws was May 25, 2011, but very few Member States met the deadline and even today, almost one month after the deadline, discussions remain ongoing in most national parliaments. The implementation efforts … Continue Reading
Today the European Commission adopted an evaluation report on the Data Retention Directive. This Directive requires EU Member States to ensure that telecommunications service providers retain certain categories of data for the purpose of investigations, detection and prosecution of serious crime, as defined by the national law of the Member States. Since its adoption in … Continue Reading
At a recent presentation in Frankfurt, Peter Hustinx, head of the European Data Protection Supervisor Office in Brussels, launched an intriguing idea: sanctioning violations of data protection law in the same manner as violations of competition law. The trade press regularly reports on multi-million euro fines for cartels or abuses of dominant positions by companies … Continue Reading
