In an ironic twist, the British Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) recently fined a Brexit advocacy group for violating regulations issued under an EU directive.  The fines, totaling £120,000,  were levied against Leave.EU and a related insurance company, Eldon Insurance, for sending marketing emails to each other’s subscribers without sufficient consent.  Leave.EU had sent marketing emails to over 300,000 of Eldon’s customers, and the two entities had carried out unlawful joint marketing campaigns through Leave. EU’s…

Citing cybersecurity concerns with a children’s smartwatch, the European Commission recently issued a recall of the device. The Safe-KID-One is a smartwatch that gives parents the ability to track and communicate with their children. According to the European Commission, security issues with the device could allow a hacker to access a user’s data, including location history, phone numbers and serial number. Additionally, the hacker could use the watch to “call another number of his…

In the aftermath of Equifax’s data breach, a federal court recently found that allegations of poor cybersecurity coupled with misleading statements supported a proper cause of action. In its decision, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia allowed a securities fraud class action case to continue against Equifax. The lawsuit claims the company issued false or misleading statements regarding the strength and quality of its cybersecurity measures. In their amended complaint, the plaintiffs…

The Governor of Massachusetts has just signed into law amendments to the state’s data breach notification law. The amendments will go into effect April 11, 2019. Under the amended law, companies whose breaches involve Social Security numbers must provide free credit monitoring services to affected individuals. The services must last 18 months (42 months if the breached company is a credit reporting agency). Companies can’t require individuals to waive their rights to sue in order…

As the first month of 2019 comes to a close, it is clear that this year will be another busy one in the world of privacy. To help get a handle on what to worry about this year, it is helpful to look back on the privacy developments from 2018 and consider what will be recurring or new themes in the year to come. To help on this front, we have put together our comprehensive…

As we previously reported the EU and Japan reached a tentative deal last summer to ease data transfer restrictions between them. That deal has now been approved by both the European Commission and by Japan and is effective immediately. When the tentative deal was reached, Japan promised to add several new data protection safeguards. Those included new individual rights and limits on further transfers to third countries. Japan also agreed to limit government access to…

Canada’s new guidelines for obtaining consent under PIPEDA are now in effect. Last year federal Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Alberta and British Columbia Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioner jointly issued the guidelines, which outline how to get “meaningful” consent. The OPC will now apply the guidelines when looking at how companies obtained consent, and it has been reported that the guides are viewed by the regulators to have the force…