Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On July 6, 2021, it was reported that British Airways (“BA”), which is owned by International Consolidated Airlines Group, S.A, had settled a UK class action lawsuit relating to its 2018 data breach, in which approximately 430,000 data subjects were affected. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) previously fined BA £20 million for the same breach, after finding that BA had failed to process the personal data of its customers in a manner that ensured appropriate security, as required under Article 5(1)(f) and Article 32 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation. This amount was significantly reduced from the ICO’s proposed fine of more than £183 million.

On June 30, 2021, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) at Hunton Andrews Kurth submitted its comments on the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s (“DPC”) consultation on its Draft Regulatory Strategy for 2021-2026, in which the DPC sets out its vision for the next five years.

On June 25, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez held in a 5-4 decision that certain members of a class action lawsuit, whose inaccurate credit reports were not provided to third parties, did not suffer a “concrete” injury sufficient to confer Article III standing. This case builds upon the Court’s 2016 decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, where the Court first addressed the concrete injury that must be suffered in order to have standing to bring suit under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”). Importantly, while Spokeo’s holding that a bare ...

On June 28, 2021, the European Commission (the “Commission”) adopted two adequacy decisions for the United Kingdom, one under the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and another under the Law Enforcement Directive. Their adoption means organizations in the EU can continue to transfer personal data to organizations in the UK without restriction, and will not need to rely upon data transfer mechanisms, such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, to ensure an adequate level of protection. The adoption comes just before the conditional interim regime under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, under which data could flow freely from the EU to the UK, was set to expire on June 30, 2021.

On June 24, 2021, Google announced that it will delay its plan to replace the use of third-party cookies on its Chrome web browser with new technologies. This delay comes amid antitrust and privacy concerns, as well as scrutiny from the advertising industry that the changes will strengthen Google’s own advertising business.

On June 17, 2021, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) announced the reintroduction of the Data Protection Act of 2021 (the “bill”), which would create an independent federal agency, the Data Protection Agency, to “regulate high-risk data practices and the collection, processing, and sharing of personal data.” The bill was first introduced in 2020 and has since been revised to include updated provisions intended to protect against privacy harms, oversee the use of “high-risk data practices” and examine the social, ethical, and economic impacts of data collection.

On June 21, 2021, following a public consultation, the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) published the final version of its recommendations on supplementary measures in the context of international transfer safeguards, such as Standard Contractual Clauses (“SCCs”) (the “Recommendations”).

On June 16, 2021, the UK Government’s Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform published an independent report containing recommendations to the Prime Minister on how the UK can reshape its approach to regulation in the wake of Brexit (the “Report”). Among wide-ranging proposals across a range of areas, the Report recommends replacing the UK General Data Protection Regulation (“UK GDPR”) with a new UK Framework of Citizen Data Rights. The proposed approach would aim to give individuals greater control over their personal data while also allowing increased data flows and driving growth in the digital economy. The Report will be considered by the Government’s Better Regulation Committee.

On June 14, 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 3746, a bill amending Texas’s data breach notification law. Texas’s breach notification law requires notice to affected residents in the event of a data breach affecting certain sensitive personal data, including Social Security numbers, driver’s license or other government-issued ID numbers, account numbers or payment card numbers in combination with any required security code, access code or password, or certain information about an individual’s health or medical condition or treatment. The law also requires businesses to notify the Texas Attorney General of any data breach affecting at least 250 Texas residents.

On June 14, 2021, the Baltimore City Council passed a bill that would ban the use of facial recognition technology by private entities and individuals within the city limits. If signed into law, Baltimore, Maryland would become the latest U.S. city to enact stringent regulations governing the use of facial recognition technology in the private sector.