Early this afternoon, the Article 29 Working Party (“Art. 29 WP”) held a press conference at which it presented its forthcoming opinion on the adequacy of the US-EU Privacy Shield. As background, the European Commission has put forth a draft “adequacy decision” in which it declares that on the basis of Privacy Shield, the United […]
EU Council Issues New Consolidated GDPR and Accelerates GDPR’s Legislative Timetable
Yesterday evening, the Council of Ministers issued a new consolidated version of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This is the first “clean” version of the GDPR that (a) incorporates all revisions agreed upon from the time of the Commission’s original 2012 proposal to the December 2015 trilogue compromise text; and (b) numbers individual provisions […]
EU Privacy Leaders Discuss US-EU Privacy Shield at Event Co-Hosted by A&B Partner
On March 22, 2016, the International Association of Privacy Professional (IAPP) hosted a podium discussion in Brussels on the new EU-US Privacy Shield. Alston & Bird co-hosted the event, which featured two top-notch privacy luminaries from EU legislative and oversight bodies: Mr. Giovanni Buttarelli, the present European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS). Mr. Bruno Gencarelli, Head […]
Germany’s Christmas Present: Data-Protection Class Actions
Following the European Court of Justice’s Schrems decision invalidating the Safe Harbor mechanism, much attention has focused on how the Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) of EU member states would interpret and enforce Schrems. While close attention to DPA activity is important—and will become even more so upon the passage of the EU General Data Protection […]
A Busy Month for German Data Protection
The European Court of Justice handed down its Schrems decision invalidating the Safe Harbor mechanism on October 6, 2015. Since then, companies have been looking to the Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) of EU member states to see how the decision would be interpreted and enforced. As many companies know, Germany is a multifaceted data-protection landscape. […]