Final Amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act Before it Becomes Effective

The California legislative Assembly and Senate both approved several amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) set to take effect on January 1, 2020, and become enforceable on July 1, 2020.

First, the CCPA was amended to exclude from its application a business’s handling of information about its employees, managers, directors, job applicants and freelancers. It also exempts information ...

Ninth Circuit Certifies Privacy Class Action against Facebook’s Photo Tag Suggestion Tool

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously rejected Facebook’s attempt to dismiss a privacy class-action alleging that it violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by not securing user consent before recording users’ facial biometrics.

The lawsuit revolves around Facebook’s Tag Suggestion feature, launched in 2010. With Tag Suggestions, Facebook uses facial-recognition technology ...

Ninth Circuit Affirms Preliminary Injunction Against LinkedIn's Blocking of Data Scraping by a Start Up

The U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s preliminary injunction in favor of a startup company, enjoining LinkedIn from blocking or putting in place any mechanism (whether legal or technical) with the effect of blocking or preventing the startup from accessing, scraping or using LinkedIn users’ public profiles. 

The decision was delivered in a ...

GDPR Updates: First Fine in Sweden and UK Guidance on the Interplay between the GDPR and Artificial Intelligence

First GDPR Fine in Sweden. The Data Protection Authority of Sweden has issued its first GDPR fine – a penalty of 200,000 Swedish Krona (approximately $20,000) – for the unlawful use of facial recognition technology to monitor student attendance at a local high-school in Sweden. The Swedish regulator held that the local school board had violated the GDPR in ...

Israel: Full Scale Enforcement of the Data Security Regulations Commences

Following the first anniversary of the new Israeli Protection of Privacy Regulations (Data Security), the Israeli privacy regulator – the Protection of Privacy Authority – published a report summarizing its enforcement activities relating to data breaches. According to the report, the regulator carried out 146 instances of administrative enforcement action against organizations in relation to data breaches classified as ‘severe’. ...

U.S. Copyright Office Sides With Led Zeppelin in Copyright Infringement Dispute over ‘Stairway to Heaven’

Randy Wolfe asserted a copyright infringement lawsuit in California federal court alleging that Led Zeppelin’s 70s hit ‘Stairway to Heaven’ infringes his song ‘Taurus’ by copying a passage from it. The lawsuit was originally dismissed by a jury verdict finding that although Led Zeppelin had access to Taurus, the two songs were not sufficiently similar to constitute infringement. The jury ...

YouTube Reportedly will Pay More than $150 Million to Settle FTC Allegations of COPPA Violations

A majority of the FTC’s panel of commissioners reportedly approved a settlement with YouTube who the FTC accused of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The FTC alleges that YouTube knowingly collected personal information of children under the age of 13 without parental consent and used it for online advertising aimed at children.

The FTC’s enforcement against YouTube ...

GDPR Updates: New Guidelines, Code of Practice, Regulatory Decision and CJEU Judgment

Guidelines on Video Devices. The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has issued draft guidelines for public comment on the data protection issues arising from the use of video devices and video surveillance. The guidelines explain that controllers operating video systems must establish the legal ground for video processing, the most likely ground being a compelling legitimate interest of the ...