France

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 June 2, 2020, the French Supervisory Authority (“CNIL”) published a paper on algorithmic discrimination prepared by the French independent administrative authority known as “Défenseur des droits”.  The paper is divided into two parts: the first part discusses how algorithms can lead to discriminatory outcomes, and the second part includes recommendations on how to identify and minimize algorithmic biases.  This paper follows from a 2017 paper published by the CNIL on “Ethical Issues of Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence”.
Continue Reading French CNIL Publishes Paper on Algorithmic Discrimination

On March 6, 2020, the French Supervisory Authority (“CNIL”) released a statement on processing personal data in light of COVID-19.

The CNIL notes that while everyone should take measures to prevent the spread of the virus, such efforts must comply with applicable data protection rules, in particular when collecting and…
Continue Reading French Supervisory Authority issues COVID-19 Guidance

On November 15, 2019, the French Supervisory Authority (“CNIL”) published guidance on the use of facial recognition. The guidance is primarily directed at public authorities in France that want to experiment with facial recognition.

The guidance warns that this technology risks leading to biased results because the algorithms used are…
Continue Reading French Supervisory Authority Publishes Guidance on Facial Recognition

On September 24, 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) adopted a decision on the geographical scope of the right to erasure under the GDPR (decision available here).  The court decided, in line with the opinion of Advocate General Szpunar, that a US-based search engine does not have to remove (de-reference) search results displayed on all the search engine’s versions.  According to the court, it suffices for search results to be deleted from the search engine’s EU versions (i.e., EU domain name extensions, such as .eu, .fr or .de).  For more information on the Advocate General’s opinion, see our prior blog post here.
Continue Reading GDPR’s right to be forgotten limited to EU websites

On June 28, 2019, the French Supervisory Authority (CNIL) announced that it will issue new guidelines on the use of cookies for direct marketing purposes.  It will issue these guidelines in two phases.

First, during July 2019, the CNIL will update its guidance issued in 2013 on cookies.  According to…
Continue Reading French Supervisory Authority will issue new guidelines on cookies

On January 21, 2019, the French Supervisory Authority for data protection (“CNIL”) issued a fine of €50 million against Google for violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) (the decision was published in French here).  The CNIL’s decision was triggered by complaints from two non-profit organizations together representing…
Continue Reading Google fined €50 million in France for GDPR violation

On January 10, 2019, Advocate General Szpunar of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) released his opinion regarding a 2016 enforcement action carried out by the French Supervisory Authority (CNIL) against Google.  In that case, the CNIL ordered Google to de-reference links to webpages containing personal data. …
Continue Reading EU Advocate General: right to be forgotten is limited to EU

Earlier this year, in the run-up to the General Data Protection Regulation’s (“GDPR”) May 25, 2018 date of application, a major question for stakeholders was how zealously the GDPR would be enforced.  Now, as the GDPR approaches its six-month birthday, an answer to that question is rapidly emerging.  Enforcement appears…
Continue Reading European Regulators Are Intensifying GDPR Enforcement

As we approach the May 2018 effective date of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), there have been a number of global developments over the last few months with respect to the so-called “right to be forgotten,” which will be codified under Article 17 of the GDPR.

European Developments

In the EU, we previously reported on a Court of Justice of the EU (“CJEU”) decision that limits the right to be forgotten with respect to public records.  And in February, A French high administrative court raised several questions to the CJEU relating to the right to be forgotten in light of the Google v. Costeja Gonzalez decision.  The questions address whether and in what circumstances search engines must delist links to websites in response to requests from data subjects, and arose in the context of a pending dispute between Google and CNIL, the French data protection authority.

A decision by a Circuit Court in Ireland recognized the right of a former election candidate to request the removal of information posted about him on Reddit under the right to be forgotten.  And the UK recently solicited views on its own implementation of the GDPR, including input regarding the interplay between the right to be forgotten and freedom of expression in the media.
Continue Reading Developments in the Right to Be Forgotten