Category: General
3. September 2019
Portugal’s new data protection law “Lei de Execução do Regulamento Geral sobre a Proteção de Dados” was finally published and entered into force last month, following its approval in June. This makes Portugal one of the last EU states to implement the GDPR regulations in national law. The new law regulates among other things the following points:
Consent:
Persons aged 13 and over can give effective consent. In an employment relationship, an employee’s consent is considered a legitimate legal basis only if it leads to a legal or economic advantage for the employee or if it is necessary to fulfil a contract.
Data Protection Officer:
In addition to the tasks defined in the GDPR, the Data Protection Officer in Portugal must ensure that audits are carried out, that Controllers are aware of the importance of early detection of data protection incidents and the relations with the Data Subjects regarding data protection.
Video surveillance:
The law stipulates that in some areas, such as bathrooms or changing rooms, video surveillance is prohibited. ATMs may also only be filmed in such a way that the customer’s keyboard and the associated PIN entry cannot be seen.
Retention periods:
If no retention period is specified, the duration necessary to achieve the purpose shall be decisive. However, the right to be forgotten can only be exercised at the end of the retention period. In contrast to the GDPR the Portuguese data protection law permits a storage of certain dates for always. This applies only to data about the social security amounts for the retirement if suitable technical and organizational measures are taken.
30. August 2019
The entry into force of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was a milestone in data protection law and attracted worldwide attention. In the daily business, interpretation issues continue to determine the work of all responsible persons for data protection. Since 8 years datenschutzticker.de, the blog of KINAST Attorneys at Law, has been reporting on practical questions regarding data protection. After approximately 2.000 blog posts and countless feedback from the readership, datenschutzticker.de is now going live.
We cordially invite you to this event!
datenschutzticker.live offers a platform for exchange between authorities and companies. We are pleased to have the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Prof. Ulrich Kelber, as well as the State Data Protection Commissioner for Hesse, Prof. Michael Ronellenfitsch and Saxony-Anhalt, Dr. Harald von Bose, as speakers for our event. Top-class speakers from the corporate side will also give lectures on data protection issues from their corporate practice.
Register today for datenschutzticker.live. The event will be in German language and take place all day on Wednesday, 30th October 2019 in the Wolkenburg in Cologne (city centre, near the main railway station). datenschutzticker.live is open to everyone and the participation is free of charge and including catering.
Due to the limitation of capacities we ask you to register by email at veranstaltung@datenschutzticker.live , stating your name and, if you are not coming as a private participant, your organisation. We look forward to meeting you live!
Your team from
datenschutzticker.live
29. August 2019
On Monday, August 26th, the Greek Parliament passed a bill that will incorporate the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) into national law. Originally, the adaptation of the EU regulation was supposed to take place until May 06, 2018. Greece failed to comply with the deadline.
The, now, fast-paced implementation of the regulation may have come as a result of the referral of Greece and Spain by the European Commission (EC) to the European Court of Justice on July 25th. Since they had failed to adopt the GDPR into national law up until then, Greece could have faced a fine of €5,287.50 for every day passed since May 06, in addition to a stiff fine of €1.3 million. In its statement, the EC declared that “the lack of transposition by Spain and Greece creates a different level of protection of peoples’ rights and freedoms, and hampers data exchanges between Greece and Spain on one side and other Member States, who transposed the Directive, on the other side”.
The EU countries are allowed to adopt certain derogations, exeptions and specifications under the GDPR. Greece has done so, in the approved bill, with adjusted provisions in regards to the age of consent, the process of appointing a Data Protection Officer, sensitive data processing, data repurposing, data deletion, certifications and criminal sanctions.
The legislation was approved by New Democracy, the main opposition SYRIZA, the center-left Movement for Change and leftist MeRA25, with an overwhelming majority. The GDPR has already been in effect since May 25th, 2018, with its main aim being to offer more control to individuals over their personal data that they provide to companies and services.
23. August 2019
The Swedish Data Protection Authority “datainspektionen” imposed its first fine since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has entered into force.
Affected is a high school in Skelleftea in the north of Sweden. In the school, 22 pupils were part of a pilot programme to monitor attendance times using facial recognition.
In January 2019, the IT company Tieto announced that it was testing the presence of students at the school with tags, spartphone apps and facial recognition software for automatic registration of students. In Sweden, it is mandatory for teachers to report the presence of all students in each lesson to the supervisors. According to Tieto, teachers at the school in Skelleftea spend around 18,000 hours a year on this registration. Therefore, a class was selected for the pilot project to test the registration for eight weeks using facial recognition. Parents and students were asked to give their consent.
However, the Swedish data protection authority has now said that the way in which consent was obtained violates the GDPR because of the clear imbalance between controller and data subject. Additionally the school failed to conduct an impact assessment including seeking prior consultation with datainspektionen.
Therefore, the DPA imposed a fine of SEK 200.000 (approximately EUR 20.000). In Sweden, public authorities can be fined up to SEK 20.000.000 (approximately EUR 1.000.000).
15. August 2019
On Monday the Irish Data Protection Commission (IDPC) has released a quick guide on Data Breach Notifications. It is supposed to help controllers understand their obligations regarding notification and communication requirements, both to the responsible DPC and to the data subject.
The guide, which is supposed to be a quick overview of the requirements and obligations which fall on data controllers, refers to the Article 29 Working Party’s (now European Data Protection Board or EDPB), much more in depth and detailed, guidance in their guideline concerning Data Breach Notifications.
In summary, the IDPC categorizes a Data Breach as a “security incident that negatively impacts the confidentiality, integrity or availability of personal data; meaning that the controller is unable to ensure compliance with the principles relating to the processing of personal data as outlined in Art. 5 GDPR”. In this case, it falls to the controller to follow two primary obligations: (1) to notify the responsible DPC of the data breach, unless it is unlikely to result in a risk for the data subject, and (2) to communicate the data breach to the affected data subjects, when it is likely to result in a high risk.
The IDPC seeks to help controllers by providing a list of requirements in cases of notification to the DPC and data subjects, especially given the tight timeframe for notifications to be filed within 72 hours of awareness of the breach. It is hoping to eliminate confusion arising in the process, as well as problems that companies have had while filing a Data Breach Notification in the past.
14. August 2019
The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) plans to give consultations on a new framework code of practice regarding the use of personal data in relation to politcal campaigns.
ICO states that in any democratic society it is vital for political parties, candidates and campaigners to be able to communicate effectively with voters. Equally vital, though, is that all organisations involved in political campaigning use personal data in a transparent, lawful way that is understood by the people.
Along with the internet, politcal campaigning has become increasingly sophisticated and innovative. Using new technologies and techniques to understand their voters and target them, political campaigning has changed, using social media, the electoral register or screening names for ethnicity and age. In a statement from June, ICO has adressed the risk that comes with innovation, which, intended or not, can undermine the democratic process by hidden manipulation through the processing of personal data that the people do not understand.
In this light, ICO expresses that their current guidance is outdated, since it has not been updated since the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It does not reflect modern campainging practices. However, the framework does not establish new requirements for campaigners, instead aims at explaining and clarifying data protection and electronic marketing laws as they already stand.
Before drafting the framework, the Information Commissioner launched a call for views in October 2018 in hopes of input from various people and organisations. The framework is hoped to have taken into account the responses the ICO had received in the process.
In hopes of being the basis of a statutory code of practice if the relevant legislation is introduced, the draft of the framework code of practice is now out for public consultation, and will remain open for public access until Ocotber 4th.
13. August 2019
Recently, the EDPB has adopted its Guidelines on processing of personal data through video devices (“the guidelines”). The guidelines provide assistance on how to apply the GDPR in cases of processing through video devices with several examples, which are not exhaustive but applicable for all areas of using video devices.
In a first step, the guidelines set the scope of application. The GDPR is only applicable for the use of video devices if
- personal data is collected through the video device ( e.g. a person is identifiable on basis of their looks or other specific elements)
- the processing is not carried out by competent authorities for the purposes of prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, or,
- the so-called “household exemption” does not apply (processing by a natural person in the course of personal or household activity).
Before processing personal data through video devices, controllers must specify their legal basis for it. According to the guidelines, every legal ground under Article 6 (1) can provide a legal basis. The purposes for using video devices for processing personal data should be documented in writing and specified for every camera in use.
Another subject of the guidelines is the transparency of the processing. The controllers have to inform data subjects about the video surveillance. The EDPB recommends a layered approach and combining several methods to ensure transparency. The most important information should be written on the warning sign itself (first layer) and the other mandatory details may be provided by other means (second layer). The second layer must also be easily accessible for data subjects.
The guidelines also deal with storage periods and technical and organizational measures (TOMs). In some member states may be specific provisions for storing video surveillance footage, but it is recommended to – ideally automatically – delete the personal data after a few days. As with any kind of data processing, the controller must adequately secure it and therefore must have implemented technical and organizational measures. Examples provided are masking or scrambling areas that are not relevant to surveillance, or the editing out of images of third persons, when providing video footage to data subjects.
Until September 9th 2019, the guidelines will be open for public consultation and a final and revised version is planned for the end of 2019.
5. August 2019
According to a report by German newspaper “Welt am Sonntag”, Amazon has Alexa’s voice recordings listened to not only by its own employees, but also by Polish temporary workers.
For some time now, Amazon has been the subject of criticism because the recordings of the Alexa language assistant are listened to and typed in by employees in order to improve speech recognition. For a long time, however, the users were unaware of this long-standing practice.
It has now become known that temporary workers in the home office listen to and evaluate the recordings using a remote work program. Until recently, a Polish recruitment agency advertised “teleworking all over the country”, although Amazon had previously assured that the voice recordings would only be evaluated in specially protected offices. However, one of the Polish temporary workers stated that many of them would work from home and that among the records were personal data such as names or places that allowed conclusions to be drawn about the person.
Upon request, Amazon confirmed the research results. A spokesman said that some employees were allowed to work from other locations than the Amazon offices, but that particularly strict rules would have to be observed. In particular, working in public places is not allowed.
On the same day, the online job advertisements were deleted and Amazon offered a new data protection option. Users can now explicitly object and block their recording for post-processing by Amazon employees.
Other language assistants have also been or are to be suspended from language evaluation, at least for European users. According to Google, around 0.2 % of the recordings are listened to subsequently, while Apple and Amazon say it is less than 1 %. Google already deactivated the function three months ago and Apple also wants to suspend the evaluation and explicitly ask its users later whether an evaluation may be resumed.
30. July 2019
In an attempt to settle a long-running litigation of a class-action case started in 2010, Google agrees to pay $13 million over claims that it violated U.S. wire-tapping laws. The issue came from vehicles used for its Street View mapping Project that captured and collected personal data from private wifi networks along the way.
Street View is a feature that lets users interact with panoramic and detailed images of locations all around the world. The legal action began when several people whose data was collected sued Google after it admitted the cars photographing neighborhoods for Street View had also gathered emails, passwords and other private information from wifi networks in more than 30 countries.
While the company was quick to call this collection of data a mistake, investigators found out that the capture of personal data was built and embedded by Google engineers in the software of the vehicles to intentionally collect personal data from accessed networks.
The new agreement would make Google to be required to destroy any collected data via Street View, agree not to use Street View to collect personal data from wifi networks without consent, and to create webpages and instructions to explain to people how to secure their wireless content.
Google had been asked to refrain from using and collecting personal data from wifi networks in an earlier settlement in 2013, which raises questions as to why it was necessary to include it in the current settlement as well.
26. July 2019
The French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) imposed a € 180.000 fine on a French insurance company for violating customer data security on their website.
Active Assurance is an insurance intermediary and distributor of motor insurances to customers. On their website, people can request offers, subscribe to contracts and access their personal space.
In 2018, CNIL received a complaint from an Active Assurance customer, saying that he had been able access other users’ data. The other accounts were accessible via hypertext links referred on a search engine. Customers’ documents were also available by slightly changing the URL. Among those records were drivers’ licences, bank statements and documents revealing whether someone has been subject of a licence withdrawal or hit and run.
CNIL informed the company about the violations and a few days later, the company stated that measures had been taken to rectify the infringements. After an on-site audit at the company’s premises, CNIL found that the measures taken were not sufficient and that Active Assurance violates Art. 32 GDPR. Active Assurance should have ensured that only authorized persons had access to the documents. The company should have also instructed the customers to use strong passwords and it should not have send them the passwords in plain text by e-mail.
Based on the seriousness of the breach and the number of people involved, CNIL imposed a fine of € 180.000.
Pages: Prev 1 2 3 ... 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 ... 30 31 32 Next 
