Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On November 21, 2022, Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) announced updated practices designed to protect the privacy of young people on Facebook and Instagram, including default privacy settings for new accounts, measures to limit unwanted interactions with adult users, and a tool to limit the spread of teens’ intimate images online.

On November 22, 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) determined in a preliminary ruling that the general public’s access to information on beneficial ownership constitutes a serious interference with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data, enshrined in Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights (the “Charter”).

On November 15, 2022, the Italian Supreme Court held that an Italian court or competent data protection authority has jurisdiction to issue a global delisting order. A delisting order requires a search engine to remove certain search results about individuals if the data subject’s privacy interests prevail over the general right to expression and information, and the economic interest of the search engine. The case was brought by an Italian individual, who requested a worldwide delisting order, concerning all versions of the search engine, due to potential damage to the applicant's professional interests outside of the European Union.

On November 30, 2022, the UK government confirmed that the Network and Information Systems (“NIS”) Regulations 2018 (“NIS Regulations”) will be strengthened to protect essential and digital services against cyber attacks. The changes bring providers of outsourced IT and managed service providers (“MSPs”) into scope of the NIS Regulations. The announcement comes in response to a public consultation held in January this year.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) recently released a draft of the agency’s Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals (“CPGs”) for critical infrastructure in the United States. The CPGs provide a common set of fundamental cybersecurity practices to guide critical infrastructure entities in measuring and improving their cybersecurity maturity.  

On November 21, 2022, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) at Hunton Andrews Kurth filed comments on the Federal Trade Commission’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“ANPR”) on commercial surveillance and data security. The ANPR sought public comment on, among other things, whether the FTC should implement new rules addressing the ways in which companies collect, aggregate, protect, use, analyze and retain consumer data.

On November 25, 2022, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) and the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, issued a joint statement setting out how they intend to work together to “ensure coherence between the data protection and the new online safety regimes.” The regulators noted that the statement is primarily intended for online service providers that are likely to be regulated under the online safety regime, but it also will be of interest to other stakeholders as an indication of their joint direction.

On November 9, 2022, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) released its second, proposed amendments to the Part 500 Cybersecurity Rule. The proposed amendments revise several aspects of the draft Cybersecurity Rule amendments released on July 29, 2022. These changes reflect several comments made in response to the draft Cybersecurity Rule to further clarify, strengthen and clarify various requirements, as highlighted below.

On November 23, 2022, the UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (“DCMS”) announced that it had completed its assessment of South Korea’s personal data legislation, and concluded that sufficiently strong privacy laws are in place to protect UK personal data transferred to South Korea while upholding the rights and protections of UK citizens.

As reported in the the Retail Industry Law Resource blog:

Plaintiff’s firms continue to file variations of state law wiretapping lawsuits over “session replay” software and “live chat” or “chatbot” applications in various jurisdictions. These filings typically allege that companies use such software tools to record users’ interactions with a website without first obtaining users’ consent, thereby violating the wiretapping, eavesdropping, or interception provisions of various state laws. Session replay software allows companies to record and play back user’s interactions on its websites. The “live chat” or “chatbot” feature allows a website user to engage in text conversations with an assistant, to which chat the company has access. These wiretapping claims threaten substantial penalties. Companies that use these web-tracking tools, however, can take steps to protect themselves from these lawsuits by a careful examination of the software being used and by evaluating what disclosures or consent may be warranted.