Following our June 4 and July 2, 2018 blog posts tracking California's November 2018 ballot measure turned hastily enacted new California privacy law titled The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA), Alston & Bird's Privacy & Data Security Group released a more detailed "first look" review of California’s sweeping new law. The advisory provides an overview of the new law, which establishes an array of privacy rights for state residents and worries for businesses nationwide, and concludes with key initial takeaways for business.
Read the advisory here. [...] Read more
As discussed in this blog’s June 4, 2018 blog post, a group called Californians for Consumer Privacy gathered enough signatures for a new measure called the Consumer Right to Privacy Act to qualify for the November 2018 ballot. With momentum building for passage of that ballot measure, various stakeholders met with California legislators to devise a bill that could be passed in place of the measure (and to the satisfaction of the measure’s backers). The legislature and governor had until last Thursday, June 28 – the deadline for the measure’s backers to remove it from the November’s [...] Read more
With the entry into application of the GDPR on May 25, 2018, the EU Member States were expected to have adopted national legislation implementing the regulation. To date, however, only 30% of Member States have effectively passed legislation, which still leaves the legal landscape to be precarious. The GDPR allows for deviations and specifications in several areas, for instance to introduce specific conditions or limitations for the processing of biometric, genetic, or health data; to create specific protection regimes for employee data; or to restrict the rights the GDPR grants to individuals. [...] Read more
Under a Vermont law that recently came into effect, data brokers that process information regarding Vermont residents are now subject to registration and security requirements. Included in the new law are three notable components: (1) a broad statutory definition of a “data broker,” (2) an annual registration requirement for data brokers, and (3) reporting on data broker security breaches.
Definition of a “Data Broker”
The law takes a technology-neutral approach to its definition of a “data broker,” instead defining the term based on the normal functions of the business. The statute [...] Read more
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: (1) resolving the main issue in the Microsoft Ireland case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, (2) providing a process for entities to request a comity analysis for potential conflicts with non-U.S. legal obligations, and (3) removing legal barriers [...] Read more
In just under 100 days, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enters into force. One of the major changes the GDPR introduces is a duty for in-scope controllers and processors to maintain written records of their processing activities. Under Article 30 GDPR, companies will need to inventory all “processing activities under [their] responsibility” and memorialize them in a written record setting forth, inter alia, the purposes of processing operations, international transfers, and retention periods.
Article 30 GDPR thus creates a new kind of documentation obligation. This obligation [...] Read more
“To Harmonize or Not To Harmonize: That Is the Question.” With the the GDPR fast approaching on May 25, 2018, European Member States are getting ready with the implementation of national legislation. Although the GDPR is a regulation, and directly applicable in all Member States, it has left room for country-specific legislation in several different regards (such as the processing of employee data or individual rights restrictions). Most Member States still only have draft legislation at this point, but the expectation (or at least intention) is that each country will have adopted legislation [...] Read more
About this time last January, the European Parliament released its proposal for a new ePrivacy Regulation. The intent of the ePrivacy Regulation is to replace the current ePrivacy regime – which consists of an ePrivacy Directive and a patchwork of local implementing legislation – with a uniform set of directly-applicable EU-wide rules. Since the Parliament released its ePrivacy Regulation draft, both the European Council and the European Parliament have reviewed it and released their own revised drafts.
The ePrivacy Regulation contains a number of important rules for companies. Traditionally, [...] Read more
On November 16, 2017 the Belgian Senate adopted an “Act on the Establishment of the Data Protection Authority” (the “Act”). Following Austria, Germany, and the UK, Belgium is the fourth EU Member State to pass a domestic statute implementing the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“GDPR”) prior to its effective date of 25 May 2018. The new Belgian Act sets forth the structure and legal organization of the Data Protection Authority (“DPA”), which will serve as the successor of the current Belgian Privacy Commission. More importantly, the Act significantly broadens the DPA’s [...] Read more
On November 30, 2017, a group of U.S. senators re-introduced a bill, known as the Data Security and Breach Notification Act, which seeks to impose criminal liability of up to five years of jail time on any corporate executive convicted of “intentionally and willfully” concealing a data breach.
The bill also proposes that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) establish standard, nationwide security protocols for businesses to follow. The bill would also require companies to report data breaches to consumers or users within 30 days unless a U.S. federal law enforcement or intelligence agency [...] Read more
