Cross-border data transfers
Data Protection and Brexit – Prospects for UK Adequacy
29 January 2020 - Adequacy , Brexit David Smith
Last week, the UK Parliament passed the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill (see our recent publication regarding the key provisions of the Bill). Following Royal Assent, the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 now gives effect, in the UK, to the EU Withdrawal Agreement, as negotiated with the EU and including the transition period to › Read More
CJEU Pokes Facebook – SCCs in Need of a Status Update
12 July 2019 - Benjamin Scrace
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) heard oral submissions on Tuesday regarding the validity of standard contractual clauses (SCCs) in Facebook Ireland & Schrems (Case C-311/18) (“Schrems II”). The Advocate General’s non-binding opinion (to be released in December 2019) will be analysed closely – SCCs underpin international transfers (not just to the › Read More
ICO Brings Some Welcome Clarification to the GDPR’s International Transfer Rules
07 September 2018 - Cross-border data transfer , ICO guidance David Smith
One of the challenges thrown up by the GDPR is understanding the interrelation between the extra-territorial scope provisions in Article 3 and the restrictions on international transfer in Chapter V. How, for example, do the international transfer restrictions apply, if they apply at all, to a data controller that has no presence in the EU › Read More
The intersection of US litigation and EU data privacy laws
27 June 2017 - Laura Hall
Companies with operations in the EU are increasingly finding that the broad scope of discovery in litigation in the United States is in conflict with their obligations under laws implementing the EU Data Privacy Directive. Most US courts, when considering whether production of documents in violation of foreign data privacy law should be compelled, have › Read More
Article 29 Working Party opinion on proposed amendments to adequacy decisions
19 December 2016 - Charlotte Mullarkey
The Article 29 Working Party (WP29) has published Opinion 04/2016 (the Opinion) on two European Commission draft Decisions aimed at curing the defects in the Commission determinations of the adequacy of protection (Adequacy Decisions) identified by the CJEU in Schrems. Although dated 31st October 2016, it appears to have been only published on Friday and the › Read More
What hangs in the balance in Microsoft’s win against the U.S. government?
21 July 2016 - Keren Livneh
On July 14, 2016, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a District Court decision ordering Microsoft to comply with a warrant issued in a U.S. narcotics trafficking investigation to produce a customer’s web-based emails, stored exclusively on servers in Ireland. The Second Circuit held that the Stored Communications Act (SCA), under which › Read More