The Apple AirTag debacle shows that there is a need to diversify privacy to protect people and brands. Diversifying privacy means more than diversifying product development and privacy teams. It means looking outside the compliance bubble and centring marginal voices, including those that challenge the status quo. Abigail Dubiniecki talks to Stewart Dresner and Tom Cooper and explains what went wrong with the Apple AirTag. Apple is usually regarded as the company at the privacy f...

Age verification and estimation by companies to protect the privacy and safety online for young people Stewart Dresner talks to Iain Corby, Executive Director, The Age Verification Providers’ Association (AVPA) and Project Manager, euCONSENT. There is consensus that young people should be safe online. But how should organisations behave in an ethical way? How to reconcile the commercial objectives of data acquisition and retention, and the legal objective of data minimisation and data ...

Justin Antonipillai, Founder and CEO, WireWheel, discusses with Helena Wootton and Stewart Dresner the privacy laws most likely to be adopted in the US. His experience of leading President Barack Obama’s attempt to have a federal privacy law adopted by the US Congress enables him to explain why he considers such a law in the next five years as unlikely. The new Chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, is more energetic on privacy issues. Stronger sanctions are likely but the FTC is c...

Canada leads on applying privacy law to sales of recreational cannabis. Michael McEvoy, Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (BC), Canada, explains why and how he has applied the BC privacy law to the legal retail sale of recreational cannabis. To coincide with the legalisation of recreational cannabis, he published in October 2018, Protecting Personal Information: Cannabis Transactions, the world’s first guidance on this subject. This was updated in a revised ver...

Guernsey is an independent island jurisdiction located between the United Kingdom and France. In this podcast, Emma Martins, Guernsey’s Data Protection Commissioner, speaks to Valerie Taylor and Stewart Dresner about this Channel Island’s adequacy declaration from the EU, and its importance for its digital economy of retaining free and safe data transfers between Guernsey, the UK and the EU. The Commissioner does not see privacy and innovation as a zero sum game and is confident ...

Laura Linkomies talks to two privacy experts, Marta Dunphy-Moriel, Partner at Deloitte, and Alexander Dittel, Associate Director at Deloitte about privacy issues with adtech. Learn what companies using adtech can do to be transparent and comply with the UK Data Protection Act.

Do app developers gather information in a legally sound way? Apps often involve trading one’s personal data for a usually free useful or entertaining service. Data privacy laws apply to apps so how can developers navigate this legal terrain? We explore Clubhouse, the audio meeting app which is on a rising trend, and the privacy laws which apply to it, as they do to all apps. The key legal questions we ask in this episode: do users understand the process? and do they know how much data the a...

Laura Linkomies talks to Jenai Nissim, Director of HelloDPO and James Young, Legal Counsel for the Frasers Hospitality Group, the global hospitality company which includes Malmaison Hotels. They cover what is included in the role of Data Protection Champions, how they won top executive buy-in, made Data Protection Champions work on a win-win basis, and how benefits have rolled out across the group in many countries.

China issued a draft law on the Protection of Personal Information in October 2020. Now that the consultation period has closed and the law is expected in 2021, Yan Luo, Partner at Covington & Burling’s Beijing office explains some of the key aspects of the draft and what it will mean for companies doing business with China.

Opt-out rights are enshrined in many national privacy laws and regulations, which provide individuals with a right to opt-out of unwanted marketing. But this is a time-consuming process and often requires know-how and commitment. Global Privacy Control (GPC) is a new mechanism which enables anyone to easily opt out of website-based marketing. Rob Shavell, Founder and CEO of Boston-based Abine (which includes DeleteMe and Blur), explains the organisations, websites and major media group...

How did FutureFlow (a start-up business) win the confidence of the United Kingdom’s ICO’s regulatory sandbox to enable its anti-money laundering service to be ready for the market and also protect personal data? Share the inside story of how FutureFlow has developed its software with the cooperation of major financial institutions and the financial regulatory authorities to track the flow of money in the international monetary system. FutureFlow’s objective is to be transformative for ...

COVID-19: The impact on wellbeing and the use of personal data in HR. Helena Wootton talks to Alison Deighton and Jenai Nissim, the Directors and Co-founders of HelloDPO. What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health and wellbeing of employees? How are organisations balancing their obligations under data protection laws when using employee data to ensure the effective management of their employees? What steps should organisations take with particular care for processing se...

The European Data Protection Board has issued GDPR controller-processor guidelines (for consultation) which define the roles and responsibilities for the different actors. Laura Linkomies talks with Elisabeth Jilderyd, International Legal Advisor and Coordinator, International and EU Department at Sweden’s Data Protection Authority about the controller-processor relationship, joint controllers, drawing up agreements between the parties, and their responsibilities in case of a data breach.

Innovation and privacy are often regarded as incompatible. They were brought together for mutual advantage in the United Kingdom’s ICO’s regulatory sandbox. Onfido, which provides proof of identity using facial recognition, has now emerged from the sandbox in its first cohort. We discuss with Onfido's Director of Privacy and the ICO’s Head of Assurance how they assessed the risks and took the plunge. Find out how both sides have benefited and learned from their experience of this one year pro...

The online advertising market is changing rapidly. Regulators are on the case. Consumers are waking up to that fact that their personal data is being used (or mis-used), and are taking back control. How are businesses reacting and what does the future hold for this multi-billion dollar industry. Tom Cooper discusses these issues with privacy lawyer Abigail Dubiniecki, My Inhouse Lawyer. For more details see Abigail's article: Achieving a privacy-first Adtech digital marketing strategy, in PL&...

The end of 2020 and the EU-UK transition period is fast approaching. Valerie Taylor and Helena Wootton discuss what will happen to international transfers of personal data from the EU to the UK and how should organisations prepare. A fuller analysis is available in the July 2020 edition of Privacy Laws & Business UK Report.

In a podcast aimed at licencees and managers, Helena Wootton, Stewart Dresner and Tom Cooper discuss possible data protection pitfalls of collecting data from customers and make some practical suggestions. Useful links: UK Government guidance - Keeping workers and customers safe during COVID-19 in restaurants, pubs, bars and takeaway services https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5eb96e8e86650c278b077616/Keeping-workers-and-customers-safe-during-covid-19-restaurants-pubs-bars-takea...

How have Covid-19 tracing apps addressed data protection issues? Do they work and are there lessons there for all app developers? Hosted by Tom Cooper, Deputy Editior, with Laura Linkomies, Editor, and Helena Wootton, Data Lawyer and Correspondent. MIT article on tracing the tracing apps mentioned in the discussion - https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/07/1000961/launching-mittr-covid-tracing-tracker/

In our first podcast, Professor Graham Greenleaf, PL&B Asia Pacific Editor, discusses the privacy aspects of Australia’s CovidSAFE voluntary contact tracing app with Stewart Dresner, Publisher, Helena Wootton, Data Lawyer and PL&B correspondent and Tom Cooper, Deputy Editor. A fuller analysis is available in the June 2020 edition of Privacy Laws & Business International Report.