Proposals are on the table in both the US and EU for major changes to the privacy law framework in each region.
On April 27th, the Future of Privacy Forum think tank (which was founded and is co-chaired by Hogan Lovells Privacy and Information Management Partner Christopher Wolf) hosted a trans-Atlantic policy dialogue at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, CA. The participants included EU Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx; Article 29 Working Party Chair Jacob Konstamm; Sjoera Nas from the Dutch Data Protection Authority; and Daniel Weitzner, the Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology. Also attending were chief privacy officers from major technology and consumer-facing organizations.
The event was notable for the frank exchange of thoughts and concerns regarding the proposed EU Data Protection Regulation proposed to replace the current privacy framework, and for the discussion concerning interoperability of the US and EU privacy regimes. Chris Wolf’s series of questions regarding the proposed “Right to Be Forgotten” prompted candid acknowledgments by the EU officials that the current draft of the proposed new EU privacy law contains ambiguities. They expressed confidence that the ongoing co-decisioning process in the European Parliament and Council will result in a modified and clearer version of the Regulation. They committed to further discussions with interested American representatives on the details of the legislative proposal.