Tag: EU
6. September 2018
The EU Commission has drafted the adequacy decision for Japan including next steps Japan has to undertake in order to ensure protection for the transfer of personal data from the EU to Japan. This includes additional safeguards Japan should apply, as well as commitments regarding access to personal data by Japanese public authorities.
Japan has committed to implement several safeguards that are necessary for the protection of the transfer of personal data before the actual adoption of the adequacy decision. These include,
- a set of rules providing additional safeguards for transferred personal data of EU individuals (addressing inter alia the topics protection of sensitive data and the further transfer of personal data from Japan to another third country),
- safeguards concerning the access to personal data by Japanese public authorities for criminal law enforcement and national security purposes,
- a complaint-handling mechanism for Europeans regarding the access of Japanese authorities to their personal data.
The Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Věra Jourová, said: “We are creating the world’s largest area of safe data flows. Personal data will be able to travel safely between the EU and Japan to the benefit of both our citizens and our economies. Our partnership will promote global standards for data protection and set an example for future partnerships in this key area.”
The next step in the adoption procedure of the adequacy decision is the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), which will be asked for his opinion.
23. May 2017
According to an European Commission Press release from the 18 May 2017, Facebook was fined €110 million by the Commission for providing misleading information about the takeover of WhatsApp.
Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014. Back then Facebook informed the European Commission that it would not be able to establish reliable automated matching between the users of Facebook and WhatsApp. Two years later, in August 2016, Facebook announced an update to its terms of service and privacy policy. The update included the possibility to link phone numbers of WhatsApp users with their respective Facebook accounts.
According to the Press release and contrary to the statement given by Facebook during the merger process 2014, the Commission has found that the possibility of automated linking of Facebook and WhatsApp users already existed in 2014.
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who is in charge of the competition policy, said: “Today’s decision sends a clear signal to companies that they must comply with all aspects of EU merger rules, including the obligation to provide correct information.”
It is the first time that the European Commission has imposed a fine on a company for the provision of misleading information since the Merger Regulation came into force in 2004.
30. November 2016
Recently, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Hungary and Croatia, have proposed a new legislation, which could facilitate police investigators to access the different entities’ encrypted information in order to make it easier to crack open encryption technology.
According to the Polish officials, “One of the most crucial aspects will be adopting new legislation that allows acquisition of data stored in EU countries in the cloud”.
European countries were asked by the Slovakian government (which holds the current presidency of the EU Council) to identify the way, in which their law enforcement authorities deal with technology preventing from the communication interception as long as they are not authorised to get the information.
Via a freedom of information request, twelve countries, amongst others Finland, Italy, Swedem or Poland, responded to the Dutch internet rights NGO Bits of Freedom, that they frequently encounter encrypted data while carrying out criminal investigations. The UK and Latvia indicated that it happens ‘almost always’.
Ultimately a dispute on prohibiting or creating backdoors in order to weaken encryption for digital and telecommunication services has raised among Germany and European Union.
Even though Germany has dismissed charges that the government is pushing companies to create encryption backdoors in their products, Angela Merkel has announced that investigators will pay more attention to tracing criminals who use the darknet and encryption, especially since the shooting in Munich in July.
So far however, Europol, ENISA and the Commission´s vice president Andrus Ansip oppose creating the backdoors weakening encryption.
22. January 2016
After several negotiations, the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission finally reached a consensus in December 2015 on the final version of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is expected to be approved by the European Parliament in April 2016. The consolidated text of the GDPR involves the following practical consequences:
1) Age of data subject´s consent: although a specific, freely-given, informed and unambiguous consent was also required according to the Data Protection Directive (95/46 EC), the GDPR determines that the minimum age for providing a legal consent for the processing of personal data is 16 years. Nevertheless, each EU Member State can determine a different age to provide consent for the processing of personal data, which should not be below 13 years (Arts. 7 and 8 GDPR).
2) Appointment of a Data Protection Officer (DPO): the appointment of a DPO will be mandatory for public authorities and for data controllers whose main activity involves a regular monitoring of data subjects on a large scale or the processing of sensitive personal data (religion, health matters, origin, race, etc.). The DPO should have expert knowledge in data protection in order to ensure compliance, to be able to give advice and to cooperate with the DPA. In a group of subsidiaries, it will be possible to appoint a single DPO, if he/she is accessible from each establishment (Art. 35 ff. GDPR).
3) Cross-border data transfers: personal data transfers outside the EU may only take place if a Commission decision is in place, if the third country ensures an adequate level of protection and guarantees regarding the protection of personal data (for example by signing Standard Contractual Clauses) or if binding corporate rules have been approved by the respective Data Protection Authority (Art. 41 ff. GDPR).
4) Data security: the data controller should recognize any existing risks regarding the processing of personal data and implement adequate technical and organizational security measures accordingly (Art. 23 GDPR). The GDPR imposes strict standards related to data security and the responsibility of both data controller and data processor. Security measures should be implemented according to the state of the art and the costs involved (Art. 30 GDPR). Some examples of security measures are pseudonymization and encryption, confidentiality, data access and data availability, data integrity, etc.
5) Notification of personal data breaches: data breaches are defined and regulated for the first time in the GDPR (Arts. 31 and 32). If a data breach occurs, data controllers are obliged notify the breach to the corresponding Data Protection Authority within 72 hours after having become aware of it. In some cases, an additional notification to the affected data subjects may be mandatory, for example if sensitive data is involved.
6) One-stop-shop: if a company has several establishments across the EU, the competent Data Protection Authority, will be the one where the controller or processor’s main establishment is located. If an issue affects only to a certain establishment, the competent DPA, is the one where this establishment is located.
7) Risk-based approach: several compliance obligations are only applicable to data processing activities that involve a risk for data subjects.
8) The role of the Data Protection Authorities (DPA): the role of the DPA will be enforced. They will be empowered to impose fines for incompliances. Also, the cooperation between the DPA of the different Member States will be reinforced.
9) Right to be forgotten: after the sentence of the ECJ from May 2014, the right to be forgotten has been consolidated in Art. 17 of the GDPR. The data subject has the right to request from the data controller the erasure of his/her personal data if certain requirements are fulfilled.
10) Data Protection Impact Assesment (PIA): this assessment should be conducted by the organization with support of the DPO. Such an assessment should belong to every organization’s strategy. A PIA should be carried out before starting any data processing operations (Art. 33 GDPR).
