Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On April 9, 2021, the First-Tier Tribunal of the General Regulatory Chamber stayed proceedings in Ticketmaster UK Limited’s (“Ticketmaster’s”) appeal against a fine issued by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) until 28 days after a judgment in civil litigation brought by 795 customers against Ticketmaster. The group action, which relates to the breach for which Ticketmaster was fined by the ICO, is currently before the High Court in England. As a result of the stay in proceedings, the appeal likely will not be heard before the Tribunal until mid to late 2023.

On April 8, 2021, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) at Hunton Andrews Kurth submitted comments in response to the Ministry of Public Security (“MPS”) of Vietnam’s Draft Decree on Personal Data Protection (“Draft Decree”).

On March 18, 2021, Lisa Sotto, Chair of Hunton’s global Privacy and Cybersecurity practice, and Mike Swift, MLaw Chief Global Digital Risk Correspondent, led a webinar on Everything You Need to Know About the California Privacy Rights Act. The webinar, which was part of LexisNexis’ Emerging Issues Webinar Series, provides an immersive look at the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”) and other recent privacy laws.

On April 1, 2021, California’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state’s prohibition on recording calls without consent applies to parties on the call and not just third-party eavesdroppers. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye wrote that California’s penal code “prohibits parties as well as nonparties from intentionally recording a communication transmitted between a cellular or cordless phone and another device without the consent of all parties to the communication.”

On March 31, 2021, the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, the “Dutch DPA”), announced a fine of €475,000 for Dutch headquartered online travel agency Booking.com for failure to report a data breach within 72 hours of becoming aware of the incident in 2019.

On March 25, 2021, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership at Hunton Andrews Kurth organized an expert roundtable on the EU Approach to Regulating AI–How Can Experimentation Help Bridge Innovation and Regulation? (the “Roundtable”). The Roundtable was hosted by Dragoș Tudorache, Member of Parliament and Chair of the Artificial Intelligence in the Digital Age (“AIDA”) Committee of the European Parliament.  The Roundtable gathered industry representatives and data protection authorities (“DPAs”) as well Axel Voss, Rapporteur of the AIDA Committee.

On April 1, 2021, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid et al., No. 19-511 (Apr. 1, 2021).  At issue in Facebook, was the question of what technology constitutes an “automatic telephone dialing system” (“ATDS”) within the meaning of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. §227 et seq (“TCPA”). The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision is a huge win for companies who communicate with their consumers by telephone/text message.

On March 15, 2021, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (“SAMR”) issued Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Online Transactions (the “Measures”) (in Chinese). The Measures implement rules for the E-commerce Law of China and provide specific rules for addressing registration of an online operation entity, supervision of new business models (such as social e-commerce and livestreaming), platform operators’ responsibilities, protection of consumers’ rights and protection of personal information.

On March 30, 2021, the European Commission (the “Commission”) announced the successful conclusion of the adequacy talks with the Republic of Korea.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) recently announced more settlements associated with its HIPAA Right of Access Initiative. The settlements with Village Plastic Surgery ("VPS") and The Arbour, Inc. (“Arbour”) resulted in combined civil monetary penalties of $95,000.