News

April 10, 2020, the Committee on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility of the Pennsylvania Bar Association issued, Formal Opinion 2020-300 “Ethical Obligations For Lawyers Working Remotely” The Committee noticed that When Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf ordered all “non-essential businesses,” including law firms to close their offices during the COVID-19 pandemic, and also ordered all persons […]

On 28 April 2020, the Belgian DPA sanction Proximus SA (previously Belgacom) for €50,000 on two basis:  non-cooperation under Article 31 of the GDPR and violation of Article 38(6) of the GDPR by appointing as DPO the director of one of its departments (Head of Compliance, Risk and Audit). The problem with the latter was conflict […]

On April 23, 2020 a federal court officially approved the agreement reached between Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last July. FTC’s investigation began after the events of Cambridge Analytica in 2018. See here for more about this investigation. The reached settlement agreement received some criticism. Facebook agreed to shift its approach to  privacy, […]

  UPDATE – March 2020 – Washington Privacy Act fails again It was almost given for granted that the Washington Privacy Act would have passed this time. The Washington State House and Senate were debating two similar bills. The difference was in the enforcement mechanism: while in the House’s Bill both the Attorney General’s office and any […]

EDPB’s Guidelines on the processing of data related to Covid-19 research data. More here 

On January 31, 2020 the EDPS published Revised Guidelines on personal data and electronic communications in the EU institutions (eCommunications guidelines). Recognizing that for “most people, electronic communications (eCommunications) such as email, internet and telephony, occupy a central role in their day-to-day professional and personal activities” and that “eCommunications are essential for organisations to operate […]

On  28 January 2020 adopted the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) adopted the Guidelines 1/2020 on processing personal data in the context of connected vehicles and mobility related applications. The EDPB states that “connected vehicles are generating increasing amounts of data, most of which can be considered personal data since they will relate to drivers […]

In Formal Opinion 2019-5, the New York City Bar Ethics Committee advised that agreements requiring the client to pay the lawyer’s fees in cryptocurrency amounted to transactions in which the fee is paid in property rather than standard fee agreements. The Ethics Committee had been asked to opined on the question: Is a fee agreement requiring the […]

The GDPR requires controllers to implement appropriate measures to be able to demonstrate compliance with the GDPR itself, taking into account among others the “the risks of varying likelihood and severity for the rights and freedoms of natural persons” (article 24 (1)). In line with the risk-based approach embodied by the GDPR, carrying out a […]

The Italian DPA (“Garante per la Protezione dei dati Personali”) issued a penalty of € 27,802,946 to cell phone carrier Tim Sp.A. for numerous and serious violations of data protection related to processing for marketing activities. The violations affected a few million people overall. From January 2017 to the first months of 2019, the DPA […]