Statutes, Rules & Regulations

On December 1, 2015, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Bill H.R. 699, introduced in February 2015. The “Email Privacy Act” would reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). The Bill would amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 prohibiting, save exceptions, a “provider of remote computing service or electronic communication service […]

In January 2014, The SC Supreme Court amended the South Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure (SCRCP) to add the following rule: RULE 41.2 – PRIVACY PROTECTION FOR FILINGS (a) Redaction.  A person filing a document in paper or electronic format shall not include, or will redact where inclusion is necessary, the following personal identifying information. (1) Social […]

On January 1, 2016, the Dutch Bill on Notification of data leaks will take effect. The legislation introduces a general obligation for Dutch data controllers to notify the Data Protection Authority (College Bescherming Persoonsgegevens) as well as affected individuals of data security breaches. The legislation also provides for increased fines in case of violations of the Dutch Data Protection […]

On October 27, 2015, the Senate passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S. 754), “CISA”. The bill addresses internet data breaches and cybersecurity. It does not “contain any provisions that would directly improve computer or network security. Instead it would encourage private entities to share information with the federal government about possible threats to industrial […]

On October 20, 2015, the House of Representatives moved to the Senate a bipartisan bill, the Judicial Redress Act of 2015, which would extend some of the protections of the Privacy Act of 1974 to citizens of certain foreign countries so that they could pursue their privacy rights in US courts. More information on the rights set […]

  On October 9, 2015, the Council of the European Union agreed on Data Protection Regulation proposal. This agreement enables the Luxembourg presidency to start discussions with the European Parliament also on that part of the Data Protection Regulation concerning the protection of personal data processed for the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offenses or […]

  On September 8, 2015, the EU-US data protection “Umbrella agreement” negotiations were finalized. The “Umbrella Agreement” establishes a comprehensive data protection framework for EU-US law enforcement cooperation. The agreement covers all personal data (for example names, addresses, criminal records) exchanged between the EU and the U.S. for the purpose of prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution […]

On September 16, 2015, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on a Senate bill that would limit governmental access to stored emails. Bill S.356, Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2015, amends the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which requires email providers to divulge to government entities the contents of communication stored by […]

  On July 23, 2015, the Constitutional Council (Conseil Constitutionnel) validated most of the Loi Renseignement containing several mass surveillance provisions (see here), which had been suspected of being unconstitutional. The Constitutional Council censored a couple of provisions of the law. Among others, it specifically deemed the procedure for “operational emergency” manifestly disproportionate with reference to the right […]

On June 12, 2015, in the Bundestag (German legislative body) a bill on data retention (Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Einführung einer Speicherpflicht und einer Höchstspeicherfrist für Verkehrsdaten) was introduced. It requires companies to store (in Germany) traffic data for a specified amount of time to allow enforcement agencies to request it for repression of terrorism. However, due to strong […]