Virtual Shadows

An interesting case from Austria that touches on Article 85 GDPR and refers to the balancing test developed by ECtHR of how to determine whether occurred processing was for journalistic purposes or not.

The case involved personal data mentioned by ex-convict in his Facebook publication. Ironically enough, Austrian DPA and court came to different conclusion using the same balancing tests. Contrary to DPA’s decision, the court found a violation of the data subject’s rights.

While the case is interesting by itself, it also raises thoughts about consistency of application of various tests and methodologies developed by #WP29 and #EDPB in their multiple papers to practical situations. In a nutshell, “two enforcers – three opinions”.

#dataprotection #lawandlegislation #privacy #politicsandlaw #compliance #dataprivacy #gdpr

I brushed up on one important thing – risk-based approach (RBA) which WP29 touched upon in 2014 in its “Statement on the role of a risk-based approach in data protection legal frameworks” (WP 218).

So what is RBA really about? The key phrase from the Statements that suggests answer: “… a data controller whose processing is relatively low risk may not have to do as much to comply with its legal obligations as a data controller whose processing is high-risk».

What does in mean? 

RBA does NOT mean that a controller may ignore some of its obligations if it processes low-risk data. This does not lead to compliance and this is a common misconception I’ve seen in my practice many times. Instead, RBA means that in this case a controller may do less to be compliant.

In fact, this is not correct to say that the whole GDPR implies RBA. Only some particular articles in particular cases do so (Art. 25, 30(5), 32-35 and some other).

Enforcement actions against Dutch supermarket and Swedish police remind that the bar for using FRT is very high.

Even if used for security purposes inside the supermarket, giving of relevant privacy notification to customers that FRT is used is not enough. However, no fine was issued by Dutch DPA (only warning).

In another case, Swedish Police unlawfully processed biometric data for facial recognition without conducting DPIA which resulted in a fine of approximately EUR 250,000. In addition, Swedish police was ordered to delete all data transfer to external database (Clearview AI) and notify data subjects that their personal data were transferred.

CLICK here to learn more on that

Hi world!

Came across a very good #Data Retention Guidance from Data Protection Network Associates issued in July, 2020 (LINK).

Being based on the #UK and #EU laws, it outlines starting tips for conducting data retention review process (it all, however, begins with data mapping exercise), provides advice on how to decide on retention periods, advises on creation of data retention policy and schedule, and much more.

Attention: the Guidance refers to #anonymization as an acceptable way of handling data when retention period comes to an end. It should be noted here that ‘true’ anonymization is very hard (if possible) to achieve, especially given that there is no industry standard on strict sequence of steps to be taken to render the data anonymized. In addition, amid the constant development of #bigdata and #AI algorithms, data we consider truly anonymized today may not have the same status tomorrow.

We talked about compliance challenges, expectations for 2021 and beyond, career in privacy & data protection, and how expertise in both EEA and Russian jurisdictions may streamline the work in a global company.

Happy reading!