On December 16, 2020, the German Federal Government passed a draft law that substantially amends some of Germany’s information technology laws (“IT laws”). These amendments aim to adapt the current legal framework to the increasing digitalization of products and services, the proliferation of IoT products, and the appearance of new cybersecurity threats. The draft law is expected to be enacted in the German Parliament in the first quarter of 2021.…

In addition to releasing the new EU Cybersecurity Strategy before the holidays (see our post here), the Commission published a revised Directive on measures for high common level of cybersecurity across the Union (“NIS2”) and a Directive on the resilience of critical entities (“Critical Entities Resilience Directive”). In this blog post, we summarize key points relating to NIS2, including more onerous security and incident reporting requirements; extending requirements to companies in the food, pharma,…

On 17 December 2020, the Council of Europe’s* Ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAHAI) published a Feasibility Study (the “Study”) on Artificial Intelligence (AI) legal standards. The Study examines the feasibility and potential elements of a legal framework for the development and deployment of AI, based on the Council of Europe’s human rights standards. Its main conclusion is that current regulations do not suffice in creating the necessary legal certainty, trust, and level playing…

On January 5, 2021, the Council of the European Union released a new, draft version of the ePrivacy Regulation, which is meant to replace the ePrivacy Directive.  The European Commission approved a first draft of the ePrivacy Regulation in January 2017.  The draft regulation has since then been under discussion in the Council. On January 1, 2021, Portugal took over the presidency of the Council for six months.  Ahead of the next meeting of the…

Judge Freeman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a class action against Google and several YouTube channel owners alleging various violations under California state law.  Plaintiffs alleged Defendants infringed their children’s privacy and consumer rights by collecting personal information and delivering targeted advertisements while they viewed child-directed YouTube videos.  However, the court found that Plaintiffs’ claims were expressly preempted by the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”), and…

Last year, Californians passed proposition 24, also known as the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”). That law makes several changes to the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), including some that relate to an organization’s cybersecurity practices.…

On December 24th, with a year-end deadline and the holidays fast approaching, European Commission and United Kingdom (“UK”) officials announced they reached a deal on the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (“Agreement”).  Once formally adopted by the European Union (“EU”) institutions, the Agreement will govern the relationship between the EU and UK beginning on January 1, 2021, following the end of the Brexit transition period. The Agreement is likely to avert a year-end scramble to…