Data protection

Privacy in 2017

After all of the 2016 drama, the start of a brand new year is a welcome development in itself – a clean sheet for a script yet to be written. However, 2017 will not be without challenges and the same applies to the world of privacy and data protection. Many of the big issues that […]

Read More

Confidently confidential

This article considers two recent developments relating to data protection and trade secrets: two sides of the same coin perhaps. Cloud computing and extra-territoriality The first development concerns the recent spat between the United States and Microsoft, not as previously an issue of antitrust compliance, but rather a question of privacy and data protection in […]

Read More

Introducing the GDPR

Towards the end of 2015, the EU institutions reached agreement on a new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which will replace the 1995 Data Protection Directive, seeking to implement a stricter and more harmonised data privacy regime. The new GDPR, which was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 4 May 2016 […]

Read More

Is the Privacy Shield adequate?

For decades, overcoming the limitations of European data protection law to transfer personal data to countries outside the European Union has been a compliance priority for organisations operating internationally. Global data flows are part of the fabric of modern communications and everyday commercial and social interactions. This is especially true of the transatlantic relations between […]

Read More

Life after Safe Harbor – an action plan

On 6 October 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) declared the EU–US Safe Harbor framework invalid as a mechanism to legitimise transfers of personal data from the EU to the US. This decision effectively leaves any organisation that relied on Safe Harbor exposed to claims that such data transfers are unlawful […]

Read More

Every silver lining has a cloud

In the last issue, I started looking at the issues of cloud computing and some of the data protection issues. This article continues that analysis. The Article 29 Working Party On 1 July 2012, the EU’s Article 29 Working Party adopted an Opinion (05/2012) on Cloud Computing, in which it analysed all relevant issues for […]

Read More

Data Privacy Law app

Ireland’s first dedicated Data Privacy Law app has been launched by leading Irish firm A&L Goodbody. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner supports this useful tool as it is aimed at senior management, privacy law professionals and in-house lawyers who need to respond to an increasing number of data protection requirements and challenges that data security […]

Read More

Importing online contacts and data protection

To say that online networking has revolutionised the way we interact socially and professionally with others is a massive understatement. Social and professional networking services, which did not even exist at the beginning of the 21st century, have become the driving force of Web 2.0 and their growth rate is a simply a reflection of […]

Read More

Data protection goes global

The ability to store and share data nationally and globally over the internet creates massive opportunities but also substantial threats. Data protection, once the concern of a small group of professionals, has become a major focus of politicians, company directors, the public sector and private individuals. Data and the databases in which information is stored […]

Read More