A major goal of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) is to protect consumer privacy. The rise in technology has made personal information of consumers more vulnerable than ever before. Because of this, the FTC has started to bring more data security and privacy cases against big tech companies. Since the U.S. does not have a comprehensive federal privacy law or independent agency solely committed to privacy violations, enforcement falls under the FTC’s purview. For years, many privacy advocates have claimed that the FTC does not issue strong enough penalties against big tech companies that fail to adequately safeguard consumer data. Now that more people are talking about data privacy issues and recent data breaches, we see a trend emerging of the FTC issuing larger fines and calling for stricter privacy standards. Two noteworthy FTC investigations recently made headlines due to the fines involved.
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The General Data Protection Act has been making headlines for quite some time now, especially the potential fines that can be levied for non-compliance. Since the law’s recent enactment in May 2018, legal professionals and privacy advocates around the world have been waiting to see how countries will enforce GDPR violations. On January 21, 2019, France made one of the most significant moves to date by handing down an enormous fine to a major technology company who they deemed violated GDPR compliance protocols.
read more Australia has recently taken significant action in the realm of data security that will potentially have global impact. In December 2018, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (“ACCC”) released recommendations on ways big technology companies can improve data security.
read more Privacy was a hot topic throughout the U.S. in 2018. California lawmakers passed some groundbreaking legislation regarding consumer privacy and the Internet of Things (“IoT”). Several other states also began to address some important data privacy concerns. Additionally, lobbying for a federal privacy law increased. Below are some key privacy developments from 2018.
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