Data Protection in the News - December 2020

Expert commentary from Tim Lennard with a roundup of recent data privacy stories
from around the globe

The calendar year promises to end with a flourish of activity in the Data Privacy and Protection world.

Recent weeks in the EU have witnessed the consultation of newly drafted Standard Contractual Clauses to facilitate international data transfers. New guidelines in data privacy by design have been issued, and the data strategy for the region to wrestle back control from US tech giants has been further communicated.

There has been some wrestling between EU national regulators, with the Irish coming under criticism for failure to act against Google, and the French Regulator (CNIL) announcing large fines under the nose of the Irish Regulator against Google (€40m) and Amazon (€35m), citing legislation predating the GDPR. At the time of writing, BREXIT related issues are still ‘in the air’.

The US has seen the enactment of the CPRA in California, adding to the baseline of the CCPA by introducing rules around ‘do not share my data’ and impacting the use of personal data in behavioural advertising tactics. The momentum of change is showing no signs of slowing, and the pressure for federal legislation will be a factor for the new US Presidency in 2021.

Canada introduced a bill to overhaul their data privacy legal regime, Australia brought in the Data Availability and Transparency Bill, and New Zealand’s Privacy Act 2020 came into force.

The ad tech industry continues to be challenged, not only with the action in France against Google and Amazon for cookie violations, but also with Max Schrems, the man behind the striking down of EU Privacy Shield Action, now acting against Apple in their use of Identifier for Advertiser (IDFA) technology on iphones.

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