Privacy Law in Review

Last month, U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm granted class certification to eight classes with claims against Marriott or Accenture LLP, a consulting company that worked with Marriott-owned Starwood Hotels and Resorts Inc. at the time of Marriott’s 2018 data breach. Read more

On 16 May 2022, the French data protection authority, the CNIL, published a new guidance in relation to the use of “cookie walls”, i.e. the practice of conditioning access to a service on the acceptance, by the website user / visitor, of the deployment of cookies or trackers on the user’s device (e.g. computer, smartphone, etc.). Read more

California-based Twitter was fined $150 million by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) for violating the FTC Act, a 2011 FTC Order, and the privacy principles under the EU-US and Swiss Privacy Shield Frameworks. Read more

On May 10, 2022, Georgetown Center on Privacy and Technology published American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century, which details how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) weaved a surveillance dragnet that captured a wealth of data from an array of sources. Read more

On May 3, 2022, Politico published a leaked copy of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion in the abortion rights case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In the draft opinion, lead author Justice Samuel Alito explicitly states, “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled” and that “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” Read more

On May 2, 2022, Politico published a leaked initial draft of a majority decision in the Supreme Court’s pending case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization; the draft concludes that the Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992) “must be overruled.” Read more

Virginia finalized the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VDPA) last month when Gov. Glenn Younkin signed two bills amending the law ahead of its January 2023 effective date. This marks the end of the amendment process that began in November of last year when the state’s VDPA Working Group issued its final report on “best practices and recommendations.” Read more

As the United States continues without a comprehensive national privacy law, individual states continue to take it upon themselves to protect their respective citizens. On May 10, 2022, Connecticut became the fifth U.S. state to enact an omnibus privacy law: Senate Bill No. 6, An Act Concerning Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring (“CTPA”). Read more

On May 27th, the California Privacy Protection Agency’s Board announced that its next meeting would be on June 8, 2022. Read more

On May 26, 2022, the California Privacy Protection Agency’s Board (CalPPA) met and shared some big news Read more