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On Episode 15 of Covington’s Inside Privacy Audiocast, Dan Cooper is joined by Nick O’Connell, head of Al Tamimi’s Digital & Data practice in Saudi Arabia. Nick shares his insights on recent privacy developments in Saudi Arabia and the broader Middle East region, in particular as they relate to emerging data protection frameworks in these…

On June 15, 2021, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) rendered a decision (press release here, full judgment here) addressing whether a European supervisory authority (“SA”) that is not the “Lead SA” (as defined in Article 56 GDPR) has competence to bring a case for an alleged violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR“) before a national court in instances where the alleged violation involved the processing of personal data across multiple EU Member States.  In such scenarios, a controller with a main establishment in Europe will typically seek to benefit from the so-called “one-stop-shop” principle under Article 56 GDPR, meaning the controller would need to answer to only one SA rather than be subject to enforcement actions brought by numerous SAs.…
Continue Reading CJEU Decides on Competence of Supervisory Authorities to Bring Cases Before National Courts under the GDPR

On June 9, 2021, the French Supervisory Authority (“CNIL”) published recommendations to help strengthen the protection of minors online (see here, in French).  These recommendations are the result of a survey and public consultation conducted by the CNIL in 2020, which focused on the digital practices of minors (see our blog post here).  The results of the CNIL’s survey and public consultation indicate that children are accessing the Internet at an early age on a “massive” scale.  In light of this reality, the CNIL underscores the importance of ensuring that minors benefit from the effective protection of their personal data when engaging online.…
Continue Reading French CNIL Publishes Recommendations for Protecting Minors Online

On June 1, 2021, several German supervisory authorities (“SAs”) announced the launch of a “nationwide investigation” into German companies transferring personal data outside of the European Economic Area.  Currently, there is no official list of all the SAs participating in the investigation, but at least 8 of Germany’s 16 regional SAs have announced their intention to take part in it, including: Baden Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saarland.…
Continue Reading German Supervisory Authorities Probe Data Transfers

Today, June 4th, 2021, the European Commission (“Commission”) published the final version of its new standard contractual clauses for the international transfer of personal data (“SCCs”) (see here).  While the final version retains much of the language of the draft version released in November 2020 (see here), it includes several notable updates.  When finalizing the SCCs, the Commission took into account the joint opinion of the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) and the European Data Protection Supervisor, feedback submitted by stakeholders during the public consultation period, and the opinions of EU Member States’ representatives.

In this blog post, we identify several key features of the new SCCs that organizations should keep in mind when preparing to implement them in contractual agreements going forward.

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Continue Reading European Commission Publishes New Standard Contractual Clauses

On May 20, 2021, there was a major ransomware attack on the Irish health system.  The centralized HSE (Health Service Executive), which provides and manages healthcare for the Irish population, was targeted on May 14 and has seen significant disruption since.  It has described the attack as a ‘zero-day threat with a brand new variant of the Conti ransomware.’

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Continue Reading Major Cyber-attack on Irish Health System Causes Commercial Concern

This week, Senators Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) introduced the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, which would update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).  COPPA is the comprehensive federal children’s privacy law enacted in 1998 that regulates the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information online from children under 13. …
Continue Reading Senators Markey and Cassidy Introduce Bill to Update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act

Last week, the Ninth Circuit ruled in Lemmon v. Snap, Inc., No. 20-55295 (May 4 2021), that 47 U.S.C. § 230 (“Section 230”) did not bar a claim of negligent product design against Snap, Inc., reversing and remanding a lower court ruling. …
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Denies Section 230 Defense in Products Liability Case

In Part 1 of this blog series (see here), we discussed recent data protection developments in China’s e-commerce sector.  In this post, we discuss recently issued rules aimed at improving data governance in China’s financial sector that could also have data protection implications.  These rules can be categorized as falling into two groups: the first group focuses on general data governance requirements applicable to all financial institutions, and the second group regulates specific types of financial services.

These new rules were published by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (“CBIRC”) and People’s Bank of China (“PBOC”) during the first quarter of 2021, and include:

  • Guidelines for Data Capacity-Building in the Financial Industry (“Guidelines”) (official Chinese version available here);
  • Financial Data Security – Data Life Cycle Security Standard (“Standard”) (official Chinese version available here); and
  • Draft Credit Reporting Management Measures (“Draft Measures”) (official Chinese version available here).

Both the Guidelines and Standard provide detailed criteria for financial institutions on the proper collection, use and protection of “financial data,” while the Draft Measures introduce data-related requirements for licensed credit reporting agencies.  All of these new rules include data security requirements for both personal and non-personal data.

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Continue Reading Privacy Updates from China: Proliferation of Sector-Specific Rules As Key Legislation Remains Pending – Part 2: Data Protection in the Financial Sector

When China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress (“NPC”), enacted the Cybersecurity Law (“CSL”) in 2017, it set into motion a new era of data governance in China.  Three years later, in 2020, the NPC followed up this landmark act with two other legislative milestones in this space: the draft Data Security Law (“DSL”) (see our blogpost here) and draft Personal Information Protection Law (“PIPL”) (see our client alert here).  Both the PIPL and DSL will be finalized this year.  Taken as a whole, these three laws form an over-arching framework that will govern data protection and cybersecurity in China for years to come.

While the DSL and PIPL have remained in draft form over the past year, the Chinese government has not stood idly by – instead, various Chinese regulators have continued to introduce data- and cyber-related rules in  key sectors.  Many of these sectoral rules do not appear to be primarily focused on data protection or cybersecurity, yet they may indirectly impact the collection, use and processing of personal information in specific sectors.  The rollout of these new rules has not been fully coordinated, and the approaches taken in some cases deviate from the over-arching framework mentioned above.  We expect this divergence to remain, even after the finalization of the PIPL and DSL.  Consequently, China’s data and cyber regime will likely present a complex web of regulatory rules for organizations to navigate – both now and in the years ahead.

In this blog series, we examine several recently-introduced data and cyber rules in the areas of e-commerce, finance, healthcare, and artificial intelligence – all of which are rapidly expanding sectors in China where the collection and use of massive amounts of personal information have given rise to a variety of regulatory concerns.  We will also explain, in the last blogpost of this series, China’s recent push to regulate how mobile applications can collect and process user data.

In our first blogpost of this series, we focus on recent developments in China’s e-commerce sector.

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Continue Reading Privacy Updates from China: Proliferation of Sector-Specific Rules As Key Legislation Remains Pending – Part 1: Data Protection in the E-Commerce Sector