Category Legal update

September 28, 2018,  EU General Data Protection Regulation, European Commission, Legal update, News  No comments

Time has almost run out for EU-US Privacy Shield. It’s highly probable that by 18 October 2018, the European Commission will agree with the European Parliament vote taken in July 2018 to suspend EU-US Privacy Shield, the international data sharing agreement between the US and the European Union.

This won’t come as any surprise within the data privacy community and in many respects has been on the cards since the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal earlier this year that underlined the importance of monitoring mechanisms intended to protect citizens from the misuse of their personal data on an industrial scale.

But it would be wrong to write off Privacy Shield as bein...

May 30, 2018,  GDPR Handbook, Legal update, News  No comments

Interviewed on the ‘zombie GDPR emails’ news story running on the BBC after I had posted the blog on LinkedIn. You can listen to my interview again here

May 12, 2018,  EU General Data Protection Regulation, European Commission, European Parliament, GDPR Handbook, Legal update, News, Thought Leadership  No comments

April 28, 2018,  EU General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR Handbook, Henley Business School, Legal update, News, Thought Leadership  No comments

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica now face a series of class actions for ‘surveillance capitalism’ in the US – will this open the floodgates for similar legal actions across the world?

April 7, 2018,  EU General Data Protection Regulation, European Commission, Guru in a Bottle, Henley Business School, Legal update, News, Social marketing practice, Thought Leadership  No comments

The Economist reports today (7 April 2018) that there’s been a bit of wake up call for Facebook and all other social media giants as a result of the furore over the mis-use of personal data. Mark Zuckerberg is openly admitting that Facebook data of up to 87 million people – 37 million more than previously reported – may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.

As a result of a data breach on a scale not seen since Yahoo!, Americans are looking enviously at Europe where data protection, privacy and security laws protecting the individual are now the global ‘gold standard’ as a result of the GDPR that’s fully enforceable from 25 May – just 34 working days fr...

March 25, 2018,  Consumer behaviour, EU General Data Protection Regulation, Legal update, News, Social marketing practice, Thought Leadership  No comments

January 5, 2018,  Consumer behaviour, EU General Data Protection Regulation, European Commission, Henley Business School, Legal update, News, Thought Leadership  No comments

Apple has just issued a second customer warning for owners of its iPhones, iPads and MAC products that they are affected by a processor flaw that could leave them vulnerable to hackers.

The US tech giant urged its millions of customers to only download software from trusted sources after the security vulnerabilities, known as Meltdown and Spectre, were revealed on Wednesday.

According to the Press Association (PA News), there’s no evidence that the security flaws that affect computer processors built by Intel and ARM – have so far been exploited by hackers, although companies including Microsoft have been working to provide urgent fixes.

Apple says it had released software ...

December 2, 2017,  Data Protection Act 1998, EU General Data Protection Regulation, Legal update, Thought Leadership  No comments

Supermarket giant Morrisons has been found vicariously liable for the actions of a rogue member of staff who stole the personal data of thousands of workers and posted it online in revenge for disciplinary action taken against him by the company.

On 1 December 2017, Mr Justice Langstaff at the High Court ruled that Morrisons was vicariously liable for the personal data breach that leaked their names, addresses, salaries, bank account details, national insurance and other sensitive personal data on line.

In July 2015, former internal auditor Andrew Skelton was found guilty at Bradford Crown Court of fraud, securing unauthorised access to computer material and disclosing person...

October 3, 2017,  European Commission, Legal update, Thought Leadership  No comments

Ireland’s High Court has just ruled today (Tuesday 3 October 2017) that the decision to ban the use of Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) by social media giants like Facebook, Microsoft and Google to transfer users’ personal data to the US must be initially decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

Giving her judgment in open court, Irish High Court Judge Caroline Costello said: “I have decided to ask the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. European Union law guarantees a high level of protection to EU citizens…they are entitled to an equivalent high level of protection when their data is transferred outside of the European Economic Area.”

T...

September 7, 2017,  EU General Data Protection Regulation, Legal update, News  No comments

With less than 200 working days left before Regulation 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation) kicks in, a new global study published by the Centre for Information Policy Leadership – a privacy and security think tank – claims that organisations in the US, South America, Europe and Asia are confused about the legal basis for processing personal data under the GDPR.

A total of 223 senior managers of multi-national companies (57% Data Controllers, 43% Data Processors) responded to the survey across a wide variety of sectors including financial services, healthcare, pharma, technology and telecoms.

The authors of the study explored the reasons why organisations choose to r...