On April 11, Justice Caroline Costello of the Irish High Court referred the Schrems 2.0 case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) with 11 questions for the ECJ to answer. Per Justice Costello, the sole issue in the case is whether the European Commission’s Decisions regarding standard contractual clauses (SCCs) are […]
Data Protection
Privacy Commissioner of Hong Kong Issues a GDPR Guidance Document
On April 3, the Hong Kong Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) announced the publication of the “European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2016” guidance document. The PCPD explains that the publication was issued to raise awareness among organizations and businesses in Hong Kong of the possible impact of the new […]
Council of the European Union publishes new draft ePrivacy Regulation
The Council of the European Union published a new draft of the ePrivacy Regulation (link here) for discussion purposes on 22 March. This draft aims to facilitate discussions as we are moving towards the final version of the ePrivacy Regulation. As such, the changes outlined below are not final, but rather indicative of the direction […]
The CLOUD Act and its Impact on Cross-Border Access to the Contents of Communications
On Friday morning, March 23, President Trump signed the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill into law, including the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act, and in doing so established a sea change in the rules for cross-border government access to the contents of electronic communications. The CLOUD Act consists of three core components: […]
Belgian Court Uses Novel Argument to Assume International Jurisdiction over Non-EU Facebook Entities
On February 16, 2018, the Brussels Court of First Instance rendered a judgment in proceedings brought by the Belgian Privacy Commission’s against Facebook. The case forms one part of two-tiered litigation brought by the Commission in regards to alleged monitoring practices vis-à-vis Belgian internet users. In parallel to the proceedings that resulted in the judgment […]