On January 23, 2019, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) issued an opinion (Opinion) on the interplay between the Clinical Trial Regulation (CTR) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an issue which has been the subject of intense debate and that resulted in a draft, and still non-public, FAQ prepared by the EU Commission. The Opinion comments on the draft FAQ and provides some insight on data protection regulators’ view on how…

In July 2018, the French data protection authority (the CNIL) issued two public formal notices against two marketing platform providers— Teemo1 and Fidzup2—for failing to obtain valid consent under the General Data Protection Regulaton (GDPR) for the use of location data for profiling and targeted advertising.3 The CNIL gave the two French companies three months to change their practices to comply with EU data protection law. On October 3, 2018, the…

In yet another round of Schrems versus Facebook, on January 25, 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that privacy activist Max Schrems is a consumer with regard to his Facebook profile despite his advocacy activities. Schrems may therefore benefit from the EU consumer forum rule, which allows him to bring a privacy action as an individual against Facebook Ireland (Facebook) in his home country, Austria. However, the court ruled that…

On October 18, 2017, the European Commission (EU Commission) published its report on the first annual review of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework (Privacy Shield). The EU Commission confirms that the Privacy Shield ensures an adequate level of protection for EU personal data that is transferred to the U.S., but calls on the U.S. government to implement a number of recommendations. Certified companies can continue to rely on the Privacy Shield to receive EU personal…

On October 3, 2017, the High Court of Ireland issued its decision in Data Protection Commissioner vs Facebook and Schrems concerning the validity of the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs)—a mechanism used by a very large number of companies to transfer personal data outside of the European Union. The Irish High Court referred this question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). This is the second time that the CJEU has been asked…

The EU Parliament Committee in charge of reviewing the EU Commission’s Proposal for an e-Privacy Regulation (Proposal) recently released a Draft Report proposing amendments to the regulation. The e-Privacy Regulation will regulate new electronic communication services such as instant messaging, VOIP services, web-based email, and IoT devices, and will impose significant additional obligations on Internet services and related technologies, including cookies and similar technologies. It supplements the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) adopted last year,…

On January 10, 2017, the European Commission published a Proposal for a Regulation  that if adopted would have significant and far-reaching implications for Internet-based services and technologies. The proposal seeks to revise the current EU ePrivacy Directive. It creates strict new rules regarding confidentiality of electronic communications, including content and metadata. In addition, the proposal amends the current rules on the use of cookies and similar technologies, and direct marketing. The rules apply to…