Catagory:Government Regulation, Legislation & Enforcement

1
ICO issues record £20 million fine to British Airways
2
No news is good news…not always!
3
Cyber Criminals “King of the (Data Breach) Jungle”: 61% of all Data Breaches caused by Malicious or Criminal Attacks, according to OAIC Report
4
Trust but verify: Independent report on Australia’s “anti-encryption” legislation released
5
OAIC and UK ICO announce joint investigation into Clearview AI
6
EU Court of Justice Invalidates Privacy Shield
7
Click your “e-John Hancock” onto that: COVID-19 helps the Australian Government clear the way for electronic execution under section 127(1) of the Corporations Act
8
Privacy Professionals download COVIDSafe App
9
It’s Trace Time! The COVIDSafe App is open for business – Part II
10
It’s Trace Time! The COVIDSafe App is open for business – Part I

ICO issues record £20 million fine to British Airways

By Cameron Abbott and Rebecca Gill

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined British Airways £20 million, the ICO’s largest fine to date, for failing to protect the personal and financial details of more than 400,000 of its customers.

In a statement published online on 16 October 2020, the ICO stated that its investigation had found that British Airways was “processing a significant amount of personal data without adequate security measures in place”. This failure is said to have breached data protection laws and, subsequently, the airline was the subject of a cyberattack in 2018, which was not detected for more than two months.

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No news is good news…not always!

By Cameron Abbott, Michelle Aggromito and Max Evans

The Commonwealth Government is proposing to introduce a controversial new mandatory code that intends to regulate digital platforms and their distribution of news content.

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Cyber Criminals “King of the (Data Breach) Jungle”: 61% of all Data Breaches caused by Malicious or Criminal Attacks, according to OAIC Report

By Cameron Abbott, Keely O’Dowd and Max Evans

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has released its report on notifications received under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme for period January to June 2020.

The OAIC reported 518 breaches were notified to it in the relevant period. The OAIC noted a 3% decrease from the 532 breaches notified in the period July 2019 to December 2019. However, there was a 16% increase on the 447 notifications received during January to June 2019.

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Trust but verify: Independent report on Australia’s “anti-encryption” legislation released

By Cameron Abbott and Rebecca Gill

The ability of a government to force a technology provider to create a “back door” into their technology to allow security agencies to “listen in” to communications is a very controversial step, but it has not been the subject of much discussion as any recipient of such intervention is gagged. 

It was interesting to see that the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor has released a report on its review of the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 (Cth) (TOLA Act). The review considered, and provided recommendations on, the operation, effectiveness and implications of the TOLA Act and whether it is necessary, is proportionate to the threats it seeks to meet and treats human rights properly.

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OAIC and UK ICO announce joint investigation into Clearview AI

By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham and Keely O’Dowd

On 9 July 2020, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced they have opened a joint investigation into the personal information handling practices of Clearview AI Inc.

The OAIC has stated the investigation will focus on ClearView AI’s use of “scraped” data and biometrics of individuals.

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EU Court of Justice Invalidates Privacy Shield

By Cameron Abbott, Claude Etienne-Armingaud, Rob Pulham, Michelle Aggromito and Keely O’Dowd

On the morning of 16 July 2020, in a significant decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the Privacy Shield was held to be invalid.

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Click your “e-John Hancock” onto that: COVID-19 helps the Australian Government clear the way for electronic execution under section 127(1) of the Corporations Act

By Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham and Warwick Andersen

Temporary amendments to the Australian Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (Corporations Act) took effect on 6 May 2020, making it easier to facilitate company meetings using remote technology, and providing some certainty as to companies’ execution of documents electronically under section 127(1) of the Corporations Act.

The Corporations (Coronavirus Economic Response) Determination (No. 1) 2020 (Determination) allows company meetings such as AGMs to be held using technology rather than face-to-face meetings, and enables a quorum, votes, notices and the asking of questions to be facilitated electronically. For a more in-depth look at these changes, see “Operating a Business During COVID-19: The Implications for Public Companies” by our colleagues Harry Kingsley, Kaveh Zegrati, and Alex Garfinkel.

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Privacy Professionals download COVIDSafe App

By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham, Michelle Aggromito and Allison Wallace

A number of legal professionals, with significant experience in the field of privacy law, have signed an open letter to encourage individuals to download the Commonwealth Government’s COVIDSafe App.

Among the privacy lawyers are members of K&L Gates own Australian privacy team (and the authors of this blog post) Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham, Warwick Andersen, Michelle Aggromito and Allison Wallace.

The open letter is signed by members in their personal capacity, and signals that people who care about privacy a lot can still think that supporting the health and economic objectives of the App is more important at this time.

As at the date of this post, more than 5 million people have downloaded the App, with more needed to reach the Commonwealth Government’s target of 40% of the Australian population.

It’s Trace Time! The COVIDSafe App is open for business – Part II

By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham and Michelle Aggromito

In Part I of this blog, we briefly touched on some of the safeguards that the Commonwealth Government has indicated that they will implement to address privacy concerns. Those proposed new safeguards are intended to satisfy many of the privacy concerns. However, there are additional safeguards that have been implemented in connection with the functionality of the App, which we focus on in Part II here.

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It’s Trace Time! The COVIDSafe App is open for business – Part I

By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham and Michelle Aggromito

The Commonwealth Government released its COVIDSafe App for download at 6.00pm AEST on Sunday 26 April, and it surpassed 1.13 million downloads within the first 12 hours. This was far greater than expectations, with Health Minister Greg Hunt commenting that, at best, the hope was that “we might get to 1 million in five days.”

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