On February 27, 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) issued a significant decision on the right of data subjects to request access to their personal data under Article 15 GDPR, specifically as it relates to automated decision-making and striking an appropriate balance between informing data subjects and protecting trade secrets (Case C‑203/22).Continue Reading CJEU Clarifies GDPR Rights on Automated Decision-Making and Trade Secrets
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Belgian Supervisory Authority Sanctions Data Broker
On January 16, 2024, the Belgian Supervisory Authority sanctioned a data broker for violating several provisions of the GDPR. In particular, the data broker processed personal data without an appropriate legal basis and in violation of its transparency obligation.
The more than 100-page decision explains that until July 2021 the data broker collected personal data from different sources and sold the data to interested third parties (“data delivery services”). The company also provided “data quality services” aimed at improving the quality and relevance of the personal data held by its clients. The relevant data were mainly used for advertising by postal mail.Continue Reading Belgian Supervisory Authority Sanctions Data Broker
Irish DPC Publishes Child-Facing Privacy Guides
On May 25, 2022, the Irish Data Protection Commission (“DPC”) issued 3 short guides for children, with the objective of raising awareness among adolescents about data protection and their privacy rights, as well as serving as a resource “for parents, educators and anyone [else] interested in children’s safety and wellbeing…
Continue Reading Irish DPC Publishes Child-Facing Privacy GuidesEDPB Publishes Draft Guidelines on the Use of “Dark Patterns” in Social Media Interfaces
On March 21, 2022, the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) published its draft Guidelines 3/2022 on Dark patterns in social media platform interfaces (hereafter “Guidelines”, available here), following the EDPB’s plenary session held on March 14, 2022. The stated objective of the Guidelines is to provide practical guidance to both designers and users of social media platforms about how to identify and avoid so-called “dark patterns” in social media interfaces that would violate requirements set out in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). In this sense, the Guidelines serve both to instruct organizations on how to design of their platforms and user interfaces in a GDPR-compliant manner, as well as to educate users on how certain practices they are subject to could run contrary to the GDPR (which could, as a result, lead to an increase in GDPR complaints arising from such practices). The Guidelines are currently subject to a 6-week period of public consultation, and interested parties are invited to submit feedback directly to the EDPB here (see “provide your feedback” button).
In this blog post, we summarize the Guidelines and identify key takeaways. Notably, while the Guidelines are targeted to designers and users of social media platforms, they may offer helpful insights to organizations across other sectors seeking to comply with the GDPR, and in particular, its requirements with respect to fairness, transparency, data minimization, purpose limitation, facilitating personal data rights, and so forth.Continue Reading EDPB Publishes Draft Guidelines on the Use of “Dark Patterns” in Social Media Interfaces
Irish DPC Finds Against WhatsApp
On Thursday, September 2, 2021, the Irish Data Protection Commission (“DPC”) published its decision in the long-awaited inquiry it initiated into the data processing of WhatsApp Ireland Limited (“WhatsApp”) in December 2018. It finds against WhatsApp, imposing a fine of €225 million.
Continue Reading Irish DPC Finds Against WhatsApp
Belgian Supervisory Authority Imposes Cookie Fine
On December 17, 2019, the Belgian Supervisory Authority (“SA”) imposed a fine of € 15,000 on an SME operating a legal information website that welcomes approximately 35,000 unique visitors a month. Interestingly, in the apparent absence of any actual complaints submitted to the SA, it carried out this enforcement action…
Continue Reading Belgian Supervisory Authority Imposes Cookie Fine
The Spanish Supervisory Authority Issues Guidance on the Use of Cookies
On November 8, 2019, the Spanish Supervisory Authority (“SA”) issued detailed guidance on cookies and similar technologies in collaboration with stakeholders in the ad industry, including Adigital, Anunciantes, AUTOCONTROL and IAB Spain. The guidance is divided in 4 chapters:
- Chapter 1: scope of the Spanish cookie rules (Art. 22
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Continue Reading The Spanish Supervisory Authority Issues Guidance on the Use of Cookies
Google fined €50 million in France for GDPR violation
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
EU Regulators Provide Guidance on Notice and Consent under GDPR
The Article 29 Working Party (WP29) has published long-awaited draft guidance on transparency and consent under the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). We are continuing to analyze the lengthy guidance documents, but wanted to highlight some immediate reactions and aspects of the guidance that we think will be of interest to clients and other readers of InsidePrivacy. The draft guidance is open for consultation until 23 January 2018.
Continue Reading EU Regulators Provide Guidance on Notice and Consent under GDPR
Congressional Privacy Bill: Commercial Privacy Rights Act of 2015
By Caleb Skeath
As we reported yesterday, the Congressional Privacy Bill has been released, following the release of the White House’s proposal for a privacy bill in late February. The bill contains the Commercial Privacy Rights Act of 2015, the Congressional counterpart to the White House’s proposal, along with data breach notification provisions and the “Do Not Track Kids Act of 2015,” which proposes substantial revisions to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). As with the White House proposal, the Privacy Rights Act would implement a comprehensive regime of substantive privacy requirements. Our analysis of the Commercial Privacy Rights Act is below, and we will separately post further analysis of the data breach provisions as well as the Do Not Track Kids Act.
Continue Reading Congressional Privacy Bill: Commercial Privacy Rights Act of 2015