Archive:2021

1
Reminder for our Apple-friendly readers
2
UK consults on new data protection regime
3
GDPR: Irish supervisory authority fines WhatsApp 225 million
4
An even ‘hacking’ field – Government Surveillance Bill passed by Parliament
5
UK unveils plan to diverge from GDPR
6
Reminder for One-Month Deadline to Implement New SCCs in New Contracts
7
Get with the program – China’s new privacy laws are coming
8
Uber found to have breached Australian’s privacy following 2016 hack
9
To pay or not to pay the ransom? Organisations may find their decision easier with government guidance
10
Ransomware attacks – is there harm even when nothing is stolen?

Reminder for our Apple-friendly readers

By Cameron Abbott and Ella Richards

Apple has released critical security updates for a vulnerability found by researchers at Citizen Lab for several Apple devices. This includes all iPhones, iPads, Mac Computers, Apple Watches and the Safari Web Browser.

The vulnerability could allow a threat actor to infect devices with spyware without the users knowledge. Once infected, the threat actor could then perform any action on the device that a normal user would. This could include actions like turning the camera and microphone on or recording messages, texts, emails, and phone calls.

Apple encourages all users of their products to update their devices as soon as possible.

UK consults on new data protection regime

By Norin McFadden and Claude-Étienne Armingaud

The UK government has unveiled its much-trailed plans to reform its data protection laws, outlined in a consultation document which is open for public comment until 19 November 2021.

Since Brexit was finalised at the start of 2021, the United Kingdom has retained much of the EU General Data Protection Regulation. The government’s plans, if implemented, would see the UK move away from the EU’s approach in several key ways, which may lead to trouble for the continuation of the adequacy decision granted by the EU in June. If terminated, the adequacy decision, currently permitting free flows of personal data between the EU and the UK, could cause increased costs and bureaucracy for businesses on both sides of the Channel to continue their data transfers. 

Some of the changes to the UK GDPR proposed in the consultation document are:

  • Making the legitimate interests lawful basis easier to use, by publishing a limited, exhaustive list of legitimate interests that organisations can use without having to complete a balancing test.
  • Removal of the right to human review of decisions made on the basis of solely automated data processing.
  • Introducing a fee for responding to subject access requests and allowing organisations to refuse to comply with requests at a lower threshold than “manifestly unfounded”, as allowed in the current legislation.

The proposals also introduce potential changes to the UK’s Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, including:

  • Increasing the current maximum penalty of £500,000 for breaches of the direct marketing regulations to the higher of 4% of global turnover or £17.5 million, thereby matching the maximum penalty under UK GDPR.
  • Removing the requirement for websites to obtain consent before serving some analytics cookies.
  • Extending the “soft opt in” for direct marketing to organisations other than businesses, such as charities and political parties.

GDPR: Irish supervisory authority fines WhatsApp 225 million

By Claude-Etienne Armingaud, Camille Scarparo and Léa Fertani.

Further to investigations initiated by the Data Protection Commission (or DPC, the Irish supervisory authority) in 2018, Whatsapp Ireland Limited has received a EUR 225 million fine on 2 September 2021. The company infringed multiple GDPR provisions including in relation with the information provided to data subjects which breached the obligation to ensure transparency of processing (Articles 13 and 14 GDPR).

Following GDPR’s one-stop-shop mechanism and as WhatsApp operates cross-border flows of personal data, the DPC had initially been designated as lead supervisory authority (‘LSA’). Article 60 GDPR requires the LSA to submit a draft decision to its impacted counterparts across the European Union (the ‘Concerned Supervisory Authorities’). Such draft has been submitted in December 2020 and the Hungarian, Portuguese, Italian, French, Dutch, Polish, German (local and federal) Concerned Supervisory Authorities unanimously raised objections to the DPC in January 2021. The objections mostly addressed the lax approach by the DPC in the assessment of WhatsApp’s breach of GDPR as well as the amount of the initially contemplated fine in view of the dozens of millions of individuals affected by such breach across the European Union.

This resulted in a non-consensual situation, escalading to the dispute resolution process under Article 65 GDPR conducted by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB). The binding decision, adopted on 28 July 2021 and subsequently notified to the DPC, required the Irish supervisory authority to reassess and increase the fine, thus leading to the second-highest fine under GDPR since its entry into force in 2018.

An even ‘hacking’ field – Government Surveillance Bill passed by Parliament

By Cameron Abbott and Ella Richards

The Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020 (Identify and Disrupt Bill) passed both houses of federal parliament on 25 August 2021. The new legislation extends the power of law enforcement agencies to identify and disrupt suspected online criminal activity through the provision of three new warrants.

The new warrants provide the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission with the power to:

  1. Modify or delete the data of suspected offenders (data disruption warrants);
  2. Collect intelligence on criminal networks (network activity warrants), and
  3. Take control of a suspected offenders’ online account (account takeover warrants).

Anyone required to assist with government hacking is protected from civil liability. However, anyone who refuses to comply can face up to 10 years’ imprisonment.

Online criminal networks are evolving rapidly with the use of anonymising technology – making the detection of serious online crime near impossible. Encrypted applications such as Discord have stated that approximately 536 verified dealers sold $100,000+ of illegal substances/stolen goods in one week, despite Discord’s “zero-tolerance” approach to illegal activity.

On the other hand, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) previously warned that the new warrant powers could adversely impact the privacy of a large number of individuals – including those with no suspected involvement in criminal activity.

The complexity of online crime makes it increasingly necessary for law enforcement agencies to level the playing field, identify suspected criminal activity and intercept that activity before it is actioned. However, proportionate consideration of individual privacy rights has created a lively debate in the passage of the legislation thus far.

The Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2021 is now awaiting Royal Assent. Keep an eye on our Cyber Law Watch blog further updates.

UK unveils plan to diverge from GDPR

By Norin McFadden and Claude-Étienne Armingaud

The UK government has announced that it intends to consult on a new, post-Brexit data protection regime, potentially moving away from the UK General Data Protection Regulation that currently underpins the UK’s data protection legislation. The Digital Secretary, Oliver Dowden, said, “It means reforming our own data laws so that they’re based on common sense, not box-ticking.

A public consultation on the new legislation will follow, but it is clear that the United Kingdom must be careful about any changes it makes to its data regime in order to avoid disrupting the EU-UK adequacy decision with EU GDPR awarded just two months ago. The adequacy decision allows personal data from the European Union to flow freely to the United Kingdom (and vice versa), without businesses needing to put any additional paperwork in place. In granting the adequacy decision, the European Union placed particular emphasis on the fact that the United Kingdom was continuing to base its data protection laws on the same EU GDPR rules that had applied when it was a member of the European Union. A European Commission spokesperson commented that the EU will be closely monitoring any developments in UK data laws and noted that: “In case of problematic developments that negatively affect the level of protection found adequate, the adequacy decision can be suspended, terminated or amended, at any time by the Commission.

It will be interesting to see how far the United Kingdom diverges, particularly as the current trend is that other countries seem to be keen to state that their data protection laws closely follow the EU GDPR.

The UK government also announced that its preferred candidate to be the next Information Commissioner, head of the UK data protection regulator, will be John Edwards, currently in charge of New Zealand’s data regulator, a country that also maintains an EU adequacy decision.

Reminder for One-Month Deadline to Implement New SCCs in New Contracts

By Jake Bernstein and Jane Petoskey

In early June 2021, the European Commission published a new set of standard contractual clauses (SCCs) effective June 27, 2021 for cross-border data transfers and between controllers and processors.  The new SCCs cover changes in data protection laws, including the invalidation of the EU-US Privacy Shield and the fallout from the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) Schrems II opinion (regarding US intelligence laws). The new cross-border data transfer SCCs also use a modular approach to allow for more accurate identification of roles and responsibilities of the contracting parties.  In terms of timing, organizations may use the old SCCs in new contracts until September 27, 2021, and contracts existing before September 27, 2021 must change to the new SCCs by December 27, 2022. For additional information on the SCCs, read our K&L Gates EU Data Protection Alert here.

Please do not hesitate to contact the K&L Gates LLP Cybersecurity and Privacy team of attorneys if you need assistance updating new or existing contracts with the new SCCs by the above deadlines.

Get with the program – China’s new privacy laws are coming

By Cameron Abbott and Ella Richards

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) passed the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) on Friday the 20th of August 2021. The new privacy regime strengthens the protection around the use and collection of personal data and introduces a new requirement for user consent.

The PIPL, closely resembling the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, prevents the personal data of PRC nationals from being transferred to countries with lower standards of data security; a rule that may pose inherent problems for foreign businesses. The PIPL was introduced following an increase in online scamming and individual service price discrimination – where the same service is offered at different prices based on a user’s shopping profile. However, while businesses and some state entities face stronger collection obligations, the PRC state security department will maintain full access to personal data.

Although the final draft of the PIPL is yet to be released, the new law is set to commence on the 1st of November 2021. Companies will face fines of up to 50 million yuan ($7.6 million USD), or 5% percent of their annual turnover if they fail to comply. For an in-depth discussion of the Draft PIPL released in August 2020, see our K&L Gates publication here.

Uber found to have breached Australian’s privacy following 2016 hack

By Cameron Abbott and Jacqueline Patishman

In 2017, Uber disclosed to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) a breach of its some 57 million global users and driver’s personal information (including approximately 1.2 million Australians). Last Friday, the OAIC determined that Uber had breached the Australian Privacy Act by failing to take reasonable steps to protect Australian’s personal information from unauthorised access.

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To pay or not to pay the ransom? Organisations may find their decision easier with government guidance

By Cameron AbbottRob Pulham and Jacqueline Patishman

The Cyber Security Advisory Committee (an industry based advisory panel established by the Minister for Home Affairs to provide independent strategic advice on Australia’s cyber security challenges) has recommended in its annual report that the federal government develop a clearer policy position on the payment of ransoms by organisations that have suffered ransomware attacks.

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Ransomware attacks – is there harm even when nothing is stolen?

By Cameron Abbott and Ella Richards

In November 2020, accounting and consulting firm Nexia Australia (Nexia) was alerted to a “REvil” ransomware attack taking place within its system. The attackers threatened to post personal information of Nexia’s clients, customers and staff online unless it paid a $1m ransom within 72 hours.

It was reported that the hackers appeared to have posted Nexia’s confidential files onto the dark web; however, further investigation revealed that the hackers had merely posted screenshots of Nexia’s files. Realising this, Nexia dismissed the threat and refused to pay the ransom.

But it didn’t end there.

Shortly after the attack, a news service found the Nexia screenshots on the dark web and publicised that the company’s confidential information had been stolen and shared. Not only did Nexia have to reassure panicking clients that their confidential information remained uncompromised, it had to convince the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Federal Police and the Privacy Commissioner that nothing of concern had been taken.

It doesn’t help that ransomware-as-a-service is becoming an increasingly lucrative business for cybercriminals to launch this type of attack. All that is needed is off-the-shelf malware, a wallet of cryptocurrency and it’s ready to deploy against an unsuspecting organisation.

The attack on Nexia demonstrates that even if there is no evidence that confidential information has been leaked, organisations can still suffer significant damage. The cost of reassuring stakeholders and mitigating reputational harm can almost match the consequences of a full blown attack.

As Warren Buffet famously quoted, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it”.  While Nexia recovered valiantly, this serves as a lesson that even when unsuccessful, the public ramifications of a ransomware attack are not to be underestimated.

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