Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On July 12, 2013, during the Centre for Information Policy Leadership’s First Friday call, José Alejandro Bermúdez Durana, Deputy Superintendent for Data Protection for Colombia’s Superintendency of Industry and Commerce, discussed the secondary regulations issued on June 27, 2013 to implement Colombia’s omnibus data protection law enacted in 2012. The Deputy Superintendent discussed key aspects of the regulations, and provided information regarding additional regulations that are needed to implement binding codes of conduct.

On June 25, 2013, the Belgian Data Protection Authority (the “Privacy Commission”) and the Belgian Ministry of Justice agreed on a Protocol establishing new rules for the approval of international data transfer agreements.

Senior Attorney Rosemary Jay reports from London:

On June 25, 2013, Advocate-General Jääskinen of the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) delivered his Opinion in Google Spain S.L. and Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (Case C-131/12, “Google v AEPD” or the “case”).

The case concerns Google Search results, and whether individuals have a right to erasure of search result links about them. The Opinion concludes that under current law, individuals have no such right. The European Commission’s proposed General Data Protection Regulation (the “Proposed Regulation”) would introduce a right to be forgotten. However, this Opinion appears to demonstrate unease with the basic concept of such a right.

In a recording prepared for the Centre for Information Policy Leadership at Hunton & Williams LLP’s (“Centre’s”) annual retreat, former UK Information Commissioner and Centre Global Strategy Advisor Richard Thomas discussed some of the challenges facing Big Data with respect to the purpose limitation principle set out in Article 6(1)(b) of the current EU Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. In April 2013, the Article 29 Working Party adopted an Opinion on this topic, focusing on how to apply the purpose limitation principle in the Big Data context. Richard Thomas ...

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On July 11, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced a resolution agreement and $1.7 million settlement with WellPoint Inc. following a security breach that affected over 600,000 individuals.

On June 5, 2013, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio denied an employer’s motion to dismiss, holding that the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”) can apply when an employer reads a former employee’s personal emails on a company-issued mobile device that was returned when the employment relationship terminated. The defendants, Verizon Wireless (“Verizon”) and the manager who allegedly read the plaintiff’s emails, argued that the SCA applies only to computer hacking scenarios, and that the plaintiff authorized the reading of her personal emails. The court rejected both of the arguments, finding:

On June 27, 2013, the Colombian Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism issued regulations pursuant to the country’s new data protection law. The regulations, entitled Decreto Número 1377 de 2013, por el cual se reglamenta parcialmente la Ley 1581 de 2012, address a variety of topics, including the following:

• Consent requirements relating to the collection of personal data;
• Restrictions on the processing of children’s personal data;
• Content and delivery of privacy notices;
• Cross-border data transfer restrictions;
• Data transfer agreements;
• Internal privacy ...

On June 28, 2013, the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (“FDPIC”) issued its 20th annual Report of Activities (the “Report”), highlighting the FDPIC’s main activities during the period from April 2012 to March 2013. The Report is available in French and in German, and the FDPIC also has prepared a summary of the Report in English.

On July 4, 2013, the European Parliament adopted new EU legislation to fight cyber crime. The Directive on attacks against information systems (the “Directive”) (see the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs’ report tabled for plenary), together with the launch of the European Cybercrime Centre and the adoption of the EU cybersecurity strategy, will strengthen the EU’s overall response to cyber crime and contribute to improving cybersecurity for all EU citizens.