On January 12, 2021, the French Data Protection Authority (Commission Nationale Informatique et Libertes – the “CNIL”) held that French Ministry of the Interior (the “Ministry”) was unlawfully processing personal information through the use of drones equipped with cameras. These drones were being used to monitor the public’s compliance with containment measures and public demonstrations. The Ministry was ordered to [...]
On the 16th of July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. he EU–US Privacy Shield was a framework regulating exchanges of personal data for commercial purposes between the the European Economic Area ("EEA") and the United States. The CJEU further decided that the standard contractual clauses (“SCC”) adopted by the European Union Commission [...]
On 15 March, due to the Covid - 19 pandemic, the state issued an order which prohibits the holding of public meetings. These clear measures were introduced to combat the spread of Covid – 19 and are expected to influence the chosen format of annual general meetings (“AGMs”) for a long time. Against this background of the Covid - 19 [...]
Introduction On 5 March 2020, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) confirmed South Africa’s first case of the Coronavirus.[1] The news alert indicated that the patient had travelled to Italy with his wife and they were part of a group of 10 travellers. After consultation with his doctor, it was confirmed that the patient had been infected with coronavirus [...]
Human error is the primary cause of personal data breaches[1]. The consequences of a data breach can be detrimental to a company and includes, not only direct damages and sanctions, but also substantial reputational harm. The mere occurrence of, as well as the costs and consequences of data breaches and data incidents could be drastically reduced by having appropriate awareness [...]
Reports have been circulating, over the past two days, that South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 ("POPIA") could become law on 1 April 2020. These are certainly credible reports, as the Information Regulator has indeed written to President Cyril Ramaphosa, requesting that POPIA be made effective from the new (national government) financial year. The Information Regulator's Chairperson - [...]
Technology constantly revolves and brings with it new opportunities for economic growth and development. Cloud services are one such technological development that has disrupted how businesses, organisations and private persons manage and store their data. Most people and businesses have migrated data management and IT solutions from the use of USBs, external hard drives, and hardware servers to cloud based [...]
Biometrics is often presented as the most ergonomic and effective way of organising access control. And this is probably the case! Local Swedish authorities reported that teachers were spending 17,000 hours a year reporting on attendance[1]. Given this shocking statistic, facial recognition at the classroom entrance could well be a very attractive option… The Swedish Data Protection Authority (the “Swedish [...]
Biometrics is often presented as an ergonomic and effective alternative to using too many passwords that are too difficult to remember. Biometrics authentication (or realistic authentication) can be used very conveniently by employers used as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify individuals in groups that are under surveillance[1] Biometric identifiers include, for example, [...]
You are probably reading this article on your smart phone, which has a digital footprint of all the people and entities in your life who you have interacted with online. Whether you are aware of it or not, your personal data is being shared online for the world to consume. This means that your location and preferences are well known. [...]
