Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On September 19, 2017, the French Data Protection Authority (“CNIL”) launched an online public consultation on two topics identified by the Article 29 Working Party (“Working Party”) in its 2017 action plan for the implementation of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). These two topics are transparency and international data transfers.

The Federal Trade Commission will host a workshop on informational injury on December 12, 2017.  The FTC’s three main goals for hosting the workshop are to:

1. “Better identify the qualitatively different types of injury to consumers and businesses from privacy and data security incidents;”
2. “Explore frameworks for how the FTC might approach quantitatively measuring such injuries and estimate the risk of their occurrence;” and
3. “Better understand how consumers and businesses weigh these injuries and risks when evaluating the tradeoffs to sharing, collecting, storing and using information.”

Hunton & Williams LLP is pleased to announce that Lisa Sotto, chair of the firm’s top-ranked Global Privacy and Cybersecurity practice and managing partner of the firm’s New York office, has been selected as an arbitrator in connection with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework Binding Arbitration Program.

Stephen Mathias of the law firm Kochhar & Co. reports from India that in a landmark judgment delivered in August 2017, the Supreme Court of India (“Court”) unanimously held that the right to privacy is a fundamental right under the Constitution of India. The Court also delivered six separate concurring judgments, with the main judgment being delivered by four of the nine judges.

On September 18, 2017, the European Commission (“Commission”) and U.S. Department of Commerce (“Department”) kicked off their first annual joint review of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield (“Privacy Shield”).  To aid in the review, the Department invited a few industry leaders, including Hunton & Williams’ partner Lisa J. Sotto, who chairs the firm’s Global Privacy and Cybersecurity practice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, to speak about their experiences during the first year of the Privacy Shield.

On September 15, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission published the ninth blog post in its “Stick with Security” series. As previously reported, the FTC will publish an entry every Friday for the next few months focusing on each of the 10 principles outlined in its Start with Security Guide for Businesses. This week’s post, entitled Stick with Security: Make sure your service providers implement reasonable security measures, highlights the importance for companies to ensure that the service providers they engage with implement reasonable security measures.

On September 8, 2017, the Council of the European Union published its proposed revisions to the draft E-Privacy Regulation (“EPR”), which was first published by the European Commission in January 2016. The revisions have been made based on written comments and discussions involving the Working Party for Telecommunications and Information Society (“WP TELE”) and serve as a discussion for further meetings of the group in late September 2017.

On September 14, 2017, the UK Government introduced a new Data Protection Bill (the “Bill”) to Parliament. The Bill is intended to replace the UK’s existing Data Protection Act 1998 and enshrine the EU General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) into UK law once the UK has left the European Union. The GDPR allows EU Member States to enact, via national law, exemptions from the various provisions of the GDPR, which the Bill also seeks to implement.

On September 13, 2017, the European Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy published a Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on “Resilience, Deterrence and Defence: Building strong cybersecurity for the EU” (“Joint Communication”). This Joint Communication is part of a package of EU documents adopted on the same date aimed at delivering a stronger EU response to cyber attacks. In particular, the Joint Communication puts forward targeted measures to (1) build greater EU resilience to cyber attacks, (2) better detect cyber attacks, and (3) strengthen international cooperation on cybersecurity.

On September 8, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission published the eighth blog post in its “Stick with Security” series. As previously reported, the FTC will publish an entry every Friday for the next few months focusing on each of the 10 principles outlined in its Start with Security Guide for Businesses. This week’s post, entitled Stick with Security: Apply sound security practices when developing new products, outlines the importance of building security into product development from the start.