This week the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) heard a case that could destabilise data flows between the US and EU under the EU-US Safe Harbor Decision. In Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner(C-362/14), the same court that last year approved the “right to be forgotten” online heard evidence about the adequacy of US data protection regulations for EU citizens’ data and considered whether recent revelations about the NSA and PRISM programmes should affect determinations
Law Enforcement Data Requests
Emergency UK Legislation Expands Government Powers to Retain and Intercept Data
On July 17th, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) came into effect in the United Kingdom reinstating the Government’s powers to require communication providers to retain traffic data (also known as metadata) and enabling the Government to serve warrants to intercept communications data on companies outside of the United Kingdom to the extent they were providing services to UK users. DRIPA became law following emergency “fast-tracked” procedures on the basis that its enactment was essential to ensure continued…
Proposed amendments to draft EU Data Privacy Regulation imposes major constraints on processing and export of Personal Data
Recently Jan Philipp Albrecht, rapporteur for the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee, the lead committee considering the proposed draft General Data Protection Regulation, published the committee’s suggested amendments to the original draft regulation. The reports runs to over 200 pages and contains over 350 separate amendments.
Since the original draft regulation was published in January of last year, businesses, industry bodies and regulators have been lobbying the European Commission, Council and Parliament to try and change some…
PL&B Annual Conference, Day 2: The Patriot Act, Distinguishing Fact from Fiction?
By Gail Crawford and Amy Taylor
It seems somewhat fitting to blog about the USA Patriot Act on this Fourth of July. On the second day of the annual Privacy Laws & Business conference in Cambridge, Peter McLaughlin, senior counsel at Foley & Lardner, took to the floor with the aim of “distinguishing fact and fiction about the scope of the law and its impact on companies outside the United States” for a predominantly European audience.
In the last slot of the…