Global Scope of the GDPR & Applicability to Companies in the United States

So this is the question that is coming up more and more here in the United States – Does the GDPR apply to our company?

Remember that GDPR was put in place to protect individuals from improper use of their personal data and also to allow them to freely move same, and to enjoy certain other rights with respect to their personal data.  While its reach is broad, the GDPR does not apply to processing of data if it falls outside the scope of EU law (processing for public safety, or government issues is not subject to it). If your company interacts with customers within the EU for purposes of trade, and you you store, process or share EU citizen’s personal data then the GDPR rules apply to your company.  Read more

GDPR’s Restrictions on “Processing” of Personal Data

At the heart of it, the European Union’s new data privacy legislation, the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), restricts what the company’s that hold or manipulate personal data of individuals can do with it, and what type of consent is required for what acts.  Like all regulations, there are a number of defined terms, which must be understood to grasp the coverage of the GDPR.  In summary it covers a lot of activities that companies may not have thought would be regulated.   Read more

Privacy Law – The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Data Breaches

We will be doing a number of posts on the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) as it will be taking effect in May of 2018.  Unlike its predecessor the GDPR is not a directive, but a regulation, meaning that all EU member countries have to comply with its explicit terms (unlike a directive which they are to incorporate into their domestic law).  The GDPR applies to a lot of data, but only that which is “personal data” defined as “any information relating to an identified or indentifiable natural person (‘data subject’)”.

One of the important new aspects of the GDPR versus any European predecessor is that it defines the term “personal data breach”, and sets forth notification requirements to both the jurisdiction and the individuals that were/could be affected by the breach. Read more