Tag: GDPR
18. July 2019
After a cyberattack on the Bulgarian’s tax agency (NRA) millions of taxpayers’ financial data has been stolen. In an estimate, it is said that most working adults in the 7 million country are affected by some of their data being compromised. The stolen data included names, adresses, income and social security information.
The attack happened in June, but an E-mail from the self-proclaimed perpetrator was sent to Bulgarian media on Monday. It stated that more than 110 databases of the agency had been compromised, the hacker calling the NRA’s cybersecurity a parody. The Bulgarian media were further offered access to the stolen data. One stolen file, e-mailed to the newspaper 24 Chasa, contained up to 1,1 million personal identification numbers with income, social security and healthcare figures.
The country’s finance minister Vladislav Goranov has appologized in parliament and to the Bulgarian citizens, adding that about 3% of the tax agency’s database had been affected. He made clear that whoever attempted to exploit the stolen data would fall under the impact of Bulgarian law.
In result to this hacking attack, the Bulgarian tax agency now faces a fine of up to 20 million euros by the Commission of Personal Data Protection (CPDP). In addition, the issue has reignited an old debate about the lax cybersecurity standards in Bulgaria, and its adjustement to the modern times.
Google may face further investigations under the General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR), after unauthorized audio recordings have been forwarded to subcontractors. The Irish Data Protection Commission (IDPC) has confirmed through a spokesperson that they have received a data breach notification concerning the issue last week.
The recordings were exposed by the Belgian broadcast VRT, said to affect 1000 clips of conversations in the region of Belgium and the Netherlands. Being logged by Google Assistant, the recordings were then sent to Google’s subcontractors for review. At least 153 of those recordings were not authorized by Google’s wake phrase “Ok/Hey, Google,” and were never meant to be recorded in the first place. They contained personal data reaching from family conversations over bedroom chatter to business calls with confidential information.
Google has addressed this violation of their data security policies in a blog post. It said that the audio recordings were sent to experts, who understand nuances and accents, in order to refine Home’s linguistic abilities, which is a critical part in the process of building speech technology. Google stresses that the storing of recorded data on its services is turned off by default, and only sends audio data to Google once its wake phrase is said. The recordings in question were most likely initiated by the users saying a phrase that sounded similar to “Ok/Hey, Google,” therefore confusing Google Assistant and turning it on.
According to Google’s statement, Security and Privacy teams are working on the issue and will fully review its safeguards to prevent this sort of misconduct from happening again. If, however, following investigations by the IDPC discover a GDPR violation on the matter, it could result in significant financial penalty for the tech giant.
11. July 2019
After a data breach in 2018, which affected 500 000 customers, British Airways (BA) has now been fined a record £183m by the UK’s Information Commissioners Office (ICO). According to the BBC, Alex Cruz, chairman and CEO of British Airways, said he was “surprised and disappointed” by the ICO’s initial findings.
The breach happened by a hacking attack that managed to get a script on to the BA website. Unsuspecting users trying to access the BA website had been diverted to a false website, which collected their information. This information included e-mail addresses, names and credit card information. While BA had stated that they would reimburse every customer that had been affected, its owner IAG declared through its chief executive that they would take “all appropriate steps to defend the airline’s position”.
The ICO said that it was the biggest penalty that they had ever handed out and made public under the new rules of the GDPR. “When an organization fails to protect personal data from loss, damage or theft, it is more than an inconvenience,” ICO Commissioner Elizabeth Dunham said to the press.
In fact, the GDPR allows companies to be fined up to 4% of their annual turnover over data protection infringements. In relation, the fine of £183m British Airways received equals to 1,5% of its worldwide turnover for the year 2017, which lies under the possible maximum of 4%.
BA can still put forth an appeal in regards to the findings and the scale of the fine, before the ICO’s final decision is made.
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.
On 29th June, the French data protection authority CNIL published its 2019-2020 action plan, which aims to set rules for targeted online advertising and guide companies in their compliance efforts.
The Action Plan consists of two main steps. First, new cookie guidelines will be published in July 2019. The last cookie policy dates back to 2013, for which CNIL stated that the policy is no longer valid and will be repealed due to the stricter approval requirements of the GDPR. In order to comply with the new cookie guidelines, companies will be given a transitional period of 12 months. During this period, it will still be possible to define further browsing of a website as consent to the use of cookies. However, CNIL requires that during this transition period Cookies will be set only after consent has been obtained.
As a second major step, working groups composed of CNIL officials and stakeholders from the adtech ecosystem will be formed to develop practical approaches to obtain consent. The draft recommendations developed on the basis of this discussion will be published by CNIL at the end of 2019 or at the latest at the beginning of 2020 in order to make them available for public consultation. CNIL will then implement the final version of the recommendations after a period of six months.
The reason for preparing the Action Plan was that CNIL received numerous complaints about online marketing practices from individuals, non-profit organisations, organisations and associations. In 2018, 21% of complaints related to these issues. At the same time, CNIL received numerous questions from industry professionals trying to better understand their GDPR obligations.
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.
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.
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.
7. June 2019
The French Data Protection Authority “Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés” (CNIL) issued a 400k euro fine for the French real estate company “Sergic” for violating the GDPR.
Sergic is specialized in real estate development, purchase, sale, rental and property management and has published the website www.sergic.com , which allows rental candidates to upload the necessary documents for preparing their file.
In August 2018, a Sergic user contacted the CNIL reporting that he had unencrypted access, from his personal space on the website, to other users’ uploaded files by slightly changing the URL. On September 7, 2018, an online check revealed that rental candidates’ uploaded documents were actually freely accessible for others without prior authentication. Among the documents were copies of identity cards, health cards, tax notices and divorce judgements. CNIL informed Sergic on the same day of this security incident and the violation of personal data. It became apparent that Sergic had been aware of this since March 2018 and, even though it had initiated IT developments to correct it, the final correction did not take place until September 17, 2018.
Based on the investigation, the responsible CNIL body found two violations of the GDPR. Firstly, Sergic had failed to fulfil its obligations according to Art. 32 GDPR, which obliges controllers to implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure a secure level of protection of the personal data. This includes for example a procedure to ensure that personal documents cannot be accessed without prior authentication of the user. In addition, there is the time that the company took to correct the error.
Secondly, the CNIL found out that Sergic kept all the documents sent by candidates in active base, although they had not accessed rental accommodation for more than the time required to allocate housing. According to the GDPR, the controller has the obligation to delete data immediately if they are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed and no other purpose justifies the storage of the data in an active database.
The CNIL imposed a fine of € 400.000 and decided to make its sanction public due to inter alia the seriousness of the breach, the lack of due diligence by the company and the fact that the documents revealed intimate aspects of people’s lives.
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.
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