Tag: data protection

EU-US Privacy Shield and SCCs facing legal challenge before the EU High Courts

3. July 2019

Privacy Shield, established between the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (US) as a replacement of the fallen Safe Harbor agreement, has been under scrutiny from the moment it entered into effect. Based on the original claims by Max Schrems in regards to Safe Harbor (C-362/14), the EU-US data transfer agreement has been challenged in two cases, one of which will be heard by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in early July.

In this case, as in 2015, Mr. Schrems bases his claims elementally on the same principles. The contention is the unrestricted access of US agencies to European’s personal data. Succeeding hearings in 2017, the Irish High Court found and raised 11 questions in regards to the adequacy of the level of protection to the CJEU. The hearing before the CJEU is scheduled for July 9th. The second case, originally planned to be heard on July 1st and 2nd, has been brought to the General Court of the European Union by the French digital rights group La Quadrature du Net in conjunction with the French Data Net and Fédération FDN. Their concerns revolve around the inadequacy of the level of protection given by the Privacy Shield and its mechanisms.
This hearing, however, has been cancelled by the General Court of the EU only days prior to its date, which was announced by La Quadrature du Net through tweet.

Despite the criticism of the agreement, the European Commission has noted improvements to the level of security of the Privacy Shield in their second review of the agreement dating from December 2018. The US Senate confirmed Keith Krach as Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy and Environment, with his duties to include being the permanent ombudsman in regards to the Privacy Shield and the EU data protection, on June 20th 2019.

As it is, both cases are apt to worry companies that rely on being certified by the Privacy Shield or the use of SCCs. With the uncertainty that comes with these questions, DPOs will be looking for new ways to ensure the data flow between Europe and the US. The European Commission stated that it wants to make it easier for companies in the future to comply with data transfers under the GDPR. It plans to update the SCCs to the requirements of the GDPR, providing a contractual mechanism for international transfers. Nonetheless, it is unclear when those updates are happening, and they may be subject to legal challenge based on the future Schrems ruling.

Consumers should know how much their data is worth

27. June 2019

US Senators Mark R. Warner (Democrats) and Josh Hawley (Republicans) want to know from Facebook, Google and Co. exactly how much the data of their users, measured in dollars and cents, is worth to them.

Last Sunday, the two senators announced their intention for the first time in a US talk show: Every three months, each user is to receive an overview of which data has been collected and stored and how the respective provider rates it. In addition, the aggregated value of all user data is to be reported annually to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In this report, the companies are to disclose how they store, process and protect data and how and with which partner companies they generate sales with the data. All companies with more than 100 million users per month will be affected.

The value of user data has risen enormously in recent years; so far, companies have protected their internal calculations as company secrets. In addition, there is no recognized method for quantifying the value of user data; only when a company is sold or valued by means of an initial public offering (IPO) does it become obvious. In the case of the WhatsApp takeover it was  $ 55 per user, in the case of Skype it was $ 200.

But one can doubt the significance of these figures. A further indication can be the advertising revenues, which are disclosed by companies per quarter. At the end of 2018, Facebook earned around $6 per user worldwide, while Amazon earned $752 per user. These figures are likely to rise in the future.  “For years, social media companies have told consumers that their products are free to the user. But that’s not true – you are paying with your data instead of your wallet,” said Senator Warner. “But the overall lack of transparency and disclosure in this market have made it impossible for users to know what they’re giving up, who else their data is being shared with, or what it’s worth to the platform. […]” Experts believe it is important for consumers to know the value of their data, because only when you know the value of a good you are able to value it.

On Monday, Warner and Rawley plan to introduce the  Designing Accounting Safeguards to Help Broaden Oversight And Regulations on Data (DASHBOARD) Act to the parliament for its first reading. It remains to be seen whether their plans will meet with the approval of the other senators.

FTC takes action against companies claiming to participate in EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and other international privacy agreements

24. June 2019

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it had taken action against several companies that pretended to be compliant with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and other international privacy agreements.

According to the FTC, SecureTest, Inc., a background screening company, has falsely claimed on its website to have participated in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield. These framework agreements allow companies to transfer consumer data from member states of the European Union and Switzerland to the United States in accordance with EU or Swiss law.

In September 2017, the company applied to the U.S. Department of Commerce for Privacy Shield certification. However, it did not take the necessary steps to be certified as compliant with the framework agreements.

Following the FTC’s complaint, the FTC and SecureTest, Inc. have proposed a settlement agreement. This proposal includes a prohibition for SecureTest to misrepresent its participation in any privacy or security program sponsored by any government or self-regulatory or standardization organization. The proposed agreement will be published in the Federal Register and subject to public comment for 30 days. Afterwards the FTC will make a determination regarding whether to make the proposed consent order final.

The FTC has also sent warning letters to 13 companies that falsely claimed to participate in the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor and the U.S.-Swiss Safe Harbor frameworks, which were replaced in 2016 by the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield frameworks. The FTC asked companies to remove from their websites, privacy policies or other public documents any statements claiming to participate in a safe harbor agreement. If the companies fail to take action within 30 days, the FTC warned that it would take appropriate legal action.

The FTC also sent warning letters with the same request to two companies that falsely claimed in their privacy policies that they were participants in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) system. The APEC CBPR system is an initiative to improve the protection of consumer data moving between APEC member countries through a voluntary but enforceable code of conduct implemented by participating companies. To become a certified participant, a designated third party, known as an APEC-approved Accountability Agent, must verify and confirm that the company meets the requirements of the CBPR program.

CNIL fines translation company for violating the French Data Protection Act

19. June 2019

The French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) recently fined UNIONTRAD COMPANY €20,000 for excessive video surveillance of employees.

UNIONTRAD COMPANY is a small French translation company with nine employees. Between 2013 and 2017, several employees complained that they were filmed at their workspaces. The CNIL alerted the company two times to the rules for installing cameras at the workspace, particularly that employees should not be filmed continuously and that information on present cameras should be given.

In an audit carried out at the company’s grounds in February 2018, the CNIL discovered among other things that the camera in the office of six translators filmed them constantly, no sufficient information about the cameras had been provided and the computer workspaces were not secured by a password.

In July 2018, the President of the CNIL issued a formal notice to the company, asking it to inter alia move the camera to no longer film the employees constantly; inform the employees about the cameras and implement appropriate security measures for access to computer workspaces.

A second audit in October 2018 showed that the company had not taken any actions for the violations. The CNIL now imposed a fine of €20,000 considering the size and financial situation of the company.

Spanish DPA imposes fine on Spanish football league

13. June 2019

The Spanish data protection authority Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) has imposed a fine of 250.000 EUR on the organisers of the two Spanish professional football leagues for data protection infringements.

The organisers, Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional (LFP), operate an app called “La Liga”, which aims to uncover unlicensed performances of games broadcasted on pay-TV. For this purpose, the app has recorded a sample of the ambient sounds during the game times to detect any live game transmissions and combined this with the location data. Privacy-ticker already reported.

AEPD criticized that the intended purpose of the collected data had not been made transparent enough, as it is necessary according to Art. 5 paragraph 1 GDPR. Users must approve the use explicitly and the authorization for the microphone access can also be revoked in the Android settings. However, AEPD is of the opinion that La Liga has to warn the user of each data processing by microphone again. In the resolution, the AEPD points out that the nature of the mobile devices makes it impossible for the user to remember what he agreed to each time he used the La Liga application and what he did not agree to.

Furthermore, AEPD is of the opinion that La Liga has violated Art. 7 paragraph 3 GDPR, according to which the user has the possibility to revoke his consent to the use of his personal data at any time.

La Liga rejects the sanction because of injustice and will proceed against it. It argues that the AEPD has not made the necessary efforts to understand how the technology works. They explain that the technology used is designed to produce only one particular acoustic fingerprint. This fingerprint contains only 0.75% of the information. The remaining 99.25% is discarded, making it technically impossible to interpret human voices or conversations. This fingerprint is also converted into an alphanumeric code (hash) that is not reversible to the original sound. Nevertheless, the operators of the app have announced that they will remove the controversial feature as of June 30.

Belgian DPA imposes first fine since GDPR

11. June 2019

On 28 May 2019, the Belgian Data Protection Authority (DPA) imposed the first fine since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force. The Belgian DPA fined a Belgian mayor 2.000 EUR for abusing use of personal data.

The Belgian DPA received a complaint from the data subjects alleging that their personal data collected for local administrative purposes had been further used by the mayor for election campaign purposes. The parties were then heard by the Litigation Chamber of the Belgian DPA. Finally, the Belgian DPA ruled that the mayor’s use of the plaintiff’s personal data violated the purpose limitation principle of the GDPR, since the personal data was originally collected for a different purpose and was incompatible with the purpose for which the mayor used the data.

In deciding on the amount of the fine, the Belgian DPA took into account the limited number of data subjects, the nature, gravity and duration of the infringement, resulting in a moderate sum of 2.000 EUR. Nevertheless, the decision conveys the message that compliance with the GDPR is the responsibility of each data controller, including public officials.

New Jersey changes data breach law to extend it to online account information

20. May 2019

On May 10, 2019, Phil Murphy, Governor of New Jersey, signed a bill amending the law regarding notification of data breaches in New Jersey. The purpose of the amendment is to extend the definition of personal data to include online account information.

The amendment requires companies subject to the law to notify New Jersey residents of security breaches concerning the user name, e-mail address or other account holder identifying information.

The amendment states that companies should notify their customers affected by violations of such information electronically or otherwise and instruct them to promptly change any password and security questions or answers or take other appropriate measures to protect their online account with the company. The same shall be done for all other online accounts for which the customer uses the same username or e-mail address and password or the same security question and answer.

In addition, the amended law prohibits the company from sending notifications to the e-mail account of a person affected by a security breach. Instead, notifications must be sent in another legally required manner or by a clear and unambiguous notification sent online when the customer’s account is connected to an IP address and the company knows that the customer regularly accesses their account from that online location.

The amendment will take effect on 1 September 2019.

Google Introduces Automatic Deletion for Web Tracking History

7. May 2019

Google has announced on its blog that it will introduce an auto delete feature for web tracking history.

So far, users have the option to manually delete data from Google products such as YouTube or Maps. After numerous requests, however, Google follows other technology giants and revised its privacy settings. “We work to keep your data private and secure, and we’ve heard your feedback that we need to provide simple ways for you to manage or delete it,” Google writes on it’s blog.

Users will be able to choose a period for which the data should remain stored, lasting a minimum of 3 months and a maximum of 18 months. At the end of the selected period, Google will automatically delete the data on a regular basis. This option will initially be introduced for Location History and Web & App Activity data and will be available over the next few weeks, according to Google.

Google’s announcement came the day after Microsoft unveiled a set of features designed to strengthen privacy controls for its Microsoft 365 users, aimed to simplify its privacy policies.

On the same day, during Facebook’s annual developer conference, F8, Mark Zuckerberg announced a privacy roadmap for the social network.

Morrisons is Allowed to Appeal Data Protection Class Action

29. April 2019

The British food store chain VM Morrison Supermarkets PLC (“Morrisons”) has been granted permission by the Supreme Court to appeal the data protection class action brought against it and to challenge the judgment for all its grounds. The case is important as it’s the first to be filed in the UK for a data breach and its outcome may affect the number of class actions for data breaches.

An employee who worked as a senior IT auditor for Morrsisons copied the payroll data of almost 100,000 employees onto a USB stick and published it on a file-sharing website. He then reported the violation anonymously to three newspapers. The employee himself was sentenced to eight years in prison for various crimes.

5,518 employees filed a class action lawsuit against Morrisons for the violation. It claimed both primary and representative liability for the company. The Supreme Court dismissed all primary liability claims under the Data Protection Act (“DPA”), as it concluded that the employee had acted independently of Morrisons in violation of the DPA.

However, the court found that Morrisons is vicariously liable for its employee’s actions, although the DPA does not explicitly foresee vicarious liability. The company appealed the decision.

The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal and upheld the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Company is vicariously liable for its employee’s data breach, even though it was itself acquitted of any misconduct.

In the future appeal of the Supreme Court, it will have to examine, among other things, whether there is deputy liability under the DPA and whether the Court of Appeal’s conclusion that the employee disclosed the data during his employment was incorrect.

Cookiebot publishes „Ad Tech Surveillance on the Public Sector Web“

20. March 2019

The website Cookiebot recently published a report of its “Ad Tech Surveillance on the Public Sector Web”. They used their scanning technology to analyse tracking across official government websites and public health service websites in all 28 European Union member states. More than 100 advertising technology companies track EU citizens who visit those public sector websites by gaining access through free third-party services such as video plug-ins and social sharing buttons.

Said ad trackers were found on 25 out of the 28 official government websites in the EU. Only the Dutch, German and the Spanish websites had no commercial trackers. Most of them were found on the French website (52 trackers) followed by the Latvian website (27 trackers).

Cookiebot also investigated the tracking on Public Health Service Sites and found out that 52% of landing pages with health information contained ad trackers. The worst ranked one was the Irish health service with 73% of landing pages containing trackers. The lowest ranked country – Germany – still hat one third of its landing pages held trackers.

Those trackers got in via free third-party website plugins. For example, Ireland’s public health service (Health Service Executive (HSE)) installed the sharing tool ShareThis, which is like a Trojan horse that releases more than 20 ad tech companies into every Website it’s installed on.

Most of the tracking tools are controlled by Google. It controls the top three domains found and therefore tracks the visits to 82% of the main government websites of the EU. A complete list of all the trackers can be find in the published report.

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