By Amigo L. Xie
2023 is destined to be a big year for the hottest issues of the China Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) for MNCs doing business in or with China especially in the areas of: cross-border personal data transfers, localization, compliance, and enforcement.
It is worth noting the following milestones in your timeline for China data privacy compliance in 2023:
Read MoreBy Claude-Etienne Armingaud, Andrew L. Chung, Camille Scarparo and Eric Yoon
Following the conclusion of the adequacy talks in March 2021, the European Commission has adopted on 17 December 2021 an adequacy decision addressing the transfers of personal data to the Republic of Korea under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Law Enforcement Directive.
Both texts prohibit the transfer of personal data to “third countries” unless (a) the destination country benefits from (i) an adequacy decision or (ii) appropriate safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses (see our alert here) or codes of conduct (see our alert here); or (b) one of the limited derogations under Article 49 GDPR applies.
With regards to the adequacy talks, the Republic of Korea agreed on the implementation of additional safeguards. Accordingly, the reform of Republic of Korea’s data protection framework (the Personal Information Protection Act) in August 2020, implemented several additional safeguards including transparency provisions and enforcement power strengthening of the Personal Information Protection Commission (§70).
The Republic of Korea adequacy decision complements the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of July 2011 and allows a seamless flow of personal data between the Republic of Korea and the European Union.
Unlike the UK adequacy decision which contains a sunset clause (see our alert here), the Republic of Korea adequacy decision is not limited in time. However, pursuant to Article 45.3 GDPR, the European Commission carry out a first review of the decision after three years to evaluate any evolution in the Republic of Korea data protection framework, that would lead to divergence with the EU regulations (§220).
The Republic of Korea now belongs to the increasing group of third countries benefiting from an adequacy decision (including, since GDPR’s entry into force, Japan and the UK).
The firm’s global data protection team (including in each of our European offices) remains available to assist you in achieving the compliance of your data transfers at global levels.
By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen and Max Evans
The City of Port Phillip Council has accidentally published to data.gov.au personal information of an unknown number of residents who had reported graffiti, according to an article from ITNews supported by a statement released by the council.
According to the statement, during work to automate the generation of a graffiti dataset, an incorrect version was selected which led to the unapproved publication of personal information such as names, phone numbers and/or email addresses of the persons who reported graffiti to the council. As the article notes, of the approximately 764 email addresses and 859 phone numbers that were published, 53% of the email addresses belonged to businesses and 28% of the phone numbers were for landlines and 1300 numbers.
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By Cameron Abbott and Michelle Aggromito
With email being one of the most common forms of communication, it’s not surprising that inboxes these days accumulate thousands of emails that, perhaps, aren’t always electronically filed or deleted (not ours of course).
As the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has indicated in its most recent report on notifications received under the Notifiable Data Breach (NBD) scheme, email accounts are frequently being used for storage, and this raises inherent risk. Yes it’s convenient, but using email to send personal information, such as copies of passports, bank account details and credit card information, can very quickly lose its appeal. If the email account is accessed by a malicious actor through a phishing attack or a rogue employee, the end result can be exploitation of that information for criminal gain.
Read MoreBy Cameron Abbott, Max Evans and Florence Fermanis
We have our first large scale data breach of the decade. Toll, a transport and logistics network which delivers up to 95 million items globally every year, has temporarily shut down a number of its IT systems as a precautionary measure after suffering a cyber-security breach on Friday, according to an article by the SMH.
A spokesperson has indicated that Toll has cybersecurity experts working closely with their IT team on the breach, and is taking careful internal measures so that systems can be brought back up online in a “controlled and secured manner”. Additionally, Toll has initiated business continuity plans to minimise the disturbance brought on by the breach. While any official numbers of affected customers and the exact nature and extent of the breach have not yet been released by Toll, The Register has reported that the breach has reportedly affected customers in Australia, India and the Philippines.
Read MoreBy Cameron Abbott, Max Evans and Florence Fermanis
Dating apps, for many young people, are a fact of life. Meeting someone these days in real-life rather than through a simple swipe right appears to have become the exception, belonging more to any number of 90s teen “romcoms” than it does to real life.
According to an article by Reuters however, in recent times dating app Grindr has been the subject of a complaint by the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) in relation to a breach of privacy rules as set out in the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, implemented in 2018.
Read MoreBy Cameron Abbott, Max Evans and James Gray
A US federal judge has ruled that the 29 million Facebook users affected by the September 2018 data breach may not seek damages as a remedy, but can only pursue the enforcement of better security practices at Facebook, according to a report by Reuters. Judge Alsup of the US District Court stated that Facebook’s repetitive losses of users’ privacy indicated a long-term need for supervision, which comes in addition to prior judgment which indicated that Facebook’s views about user’s privacy expectations were “so wrong”.
Read MoreBy Cameron Abbott, Michelle Aggromito and Alyssia Totham
Until recently, a security vulnerability in the social media platform Instagram, allowed Hyp3r to illicitly harvest millions of Instagram users’ data and track their locations.
In a similar manner to the Cambridge Analytica scandal that plagued Facebook following the 2016 US presidential election, this latest example of Hyp3r’s mass data collection was discovered through a journalistic investigation and was not uncovered by the social media platform.
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