Updates on developments in data privacy and cybersecurity
On January 19, 2021, the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) and the European Data Protection Supervisor (“EDPS”) issued a joint opinion on the draft standard contractual clauses for international data transfers (“draft SCCs”) published by the European Commission (“EC”) on November 12, 2020, including a marked-up version of the clauses.
The EDPB/EDPS joint opinion proposes…
On 11 November 2020, the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) issued two draft recommendations relating to the rules on how organizations may lawfully transfer personal data from the EU to countries outside the EU (“third countries”). These draft recommendations, which are non-final and open for public consultation until 30 November 2020, follow the EU Court of Justice (“CJEU”) decision in Case C-311/18 (“Schrems II”). (For a more in-depth summary of the CJEU decision, please see our blog post here and our audiocast here. The EDPB also published on 24 July 2020 FAQs on the Schrems II decision here).
The two recommendations adopted by the EDPB are:
On 7 September 2020, the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) adopted draft guidelines on the targeting of social media users (the “Guidelines”). The Guidelines aim to clarify the roles and responsibilities of social media providers and “targeters” with regard to the processing of personal data for the purposes of targeting social media users.
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Continue Reading EDPB Publishes Draft Guidelines on the Targeting of Social Media Users
On September 2, 2020, the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) adopted guidelines on the concepts of “controller” and processor” under the GDPR. The Article 29 Working Party had already issued a guidance on this topic in 2010. Although the GDPR did not change the definitions of “controller” and “processor”, the EDPB’s guidelines aim to bring further clarity to these critical concepts and discuss the relationship between them.
The EDPB’s guidelines are divided in two parts.
Continue Reading EDPB Publishes Guidelines on the GDPR Concepts of “Controller”, “Joint Controller” and “Processor”
On June 19, 2020, the French Council of State (Conseil d’État) decided that the French Supervisory Authority (“CNIL”) had gone too far in its guidance on cookies and similar technologies when it stated that conditioning a user’s access to a website upon his or her acceptance of certain cookies (commonly known as “cookie walls”) is never compliant with the consent requirements in the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).
According to the Council of State, such a blanket prohibition cannot be deduced from the text of the GDPR. The Council of State reminded the CNIL that its guidance is only soft law and therefore must follow the text of the GDPR. The CNIL has announced that it will adapt its guidance in light of the Council of State’s decision. The decision serves as a stark reminder that even EDPB or CNIL guidance is can only interpret the text of the GDPR, and cannot break fresh legal ground.
Continue Reading French Council of State Decides that the French Supervisory Authority Cannot Prohibit Cookie Walls
On May 4, 2020, the Hungarian Government issued a Decree that suspends, during the COVID-19 created state of emergency, the one-month deadline that controllers have under the GDPR to reply to data subject rights requests. The Decree also allows public entities to refuse or suspend freedom of information (“FOIA”) requests in certain situations. The Decree…
On April 9, 2020, the German Supervisory Authority of Baden-Wuerttemberg published standard contractual clauses for data processors pursuant to Article 28(8) GDPR. It is the first German Supervisory Authority to do so, and the second in EU after the Danish Supervisory Authority published its own standard clauses in July 2019. However, while the Danish clauses…
On April 7, 2020, the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) announced that it assigned specific mandates to two expert subgroups to prepare guidance on a number of Covid-19 related topics. The list of topics chosen by the EDPB reflects those that have received the closest scrutiny by the national authorities. …
Continue Reading EDPB will issue data protection guidance on several topics relating to COVID-19
On March 16, 2020, the Chair of the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”), Andrea Jelinek, issued a statement on the processing of personal data in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The statement made clear that EU data protection law does not stand in the way of the adoption of measures to fight against the Coronavirus pandemic. However, it stressed that controllers (including employers), as well as governments, should be mindful of a number considerations when adopting measures to fight the pandemic that involve the processing of personal data.…
Continue Reading EDPB Chair Issues Statement on Data Protection and COVID-19
On November 14, 2019, the EDPB adopted a final version of Guidelines 3/2018 on the territorial scope of the GDPR (Art. 3). This takes into account the contributions and feedback that the EDPB received during a public consultation on a draft version of the guidelines (see here).
The draft version of the guidelines raised…
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