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Adoption of the Privacy Shield by the European Commission
In a decision dated 12 July 2016, the European Commission adopted the "Privacy Shield" adequacy decision, which aims to replace the "Safe Harbour" invalidated by the Court of Justice of the European Union on 6 October 2015. This decision authorises the transfer of personal data from the European Union to companies established in ... Read more
Personal data - USA - Stored Communications Act
This decision was eagerly awaited following Microsoft's appeal against the search warrant ordering it to provide the contents of a non-US customer's email account hosted in Ireland. In December 2013, at the request of federal prosecutors, a US federal judge issued a search warrant for Microsoft's email account in ... Read more
Personal data - Access by heirs of a deceased person
No access by a beneficiary to the personal data of a deceased person In a decision dated 8 June 2016, the Conseil d'Etat ruled on the definition of "data subject" within the meaning of Article 2 of the 1978 Data Protection Act (Loi informatique et libertés - LIL), ruling that it could not include the successor in title of a deceased person. ... Read more
The European Parliament adopts the regulation on the protection of personal data
After four years of intensive work, the European Parliament adopted the new Regulation on the protection of personal data on 14 April 2016. The parliamentarians wanted the regulation to be "future-proof", in particular by being neutral in terms of technologies and adapted to Big Data, in order to be applicable to ... Read more
Réseaux sociaux - The clause in Facebook's Terms and Conditions imposing a Californian court is abusive
In a ruling handed down on 12 February 2016, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled that the jurisdiction clause in Facebook's general terms and conditions of use, which gives jurisdiction to the courts of the State of California (US), constitutes an unfair clause. The Court of Appeal ruled that: the Internet user who sued Facebook to obtain jurisdiction over his ... Read more
E-commerce - The Paris TGI has jurisdiction over an Italian website targeting a French audience
In a ruling dated 14 January 2016, the Paris Tribunal de Grande Instance (High Court) ruled that it had jurisdiction in a dispute concerning the infringement of a French trademark by an Italian company on its Italian website. The Court found that the Italian website was aimed at a French audience and therefore presented a ... Read more
Personal data - Safe Harbor, the sequel: the G29's analysis of the CJEU decision
On 2 and 3 February, the G29, a group made up of the various European supervisory authorities (including the CNIL in France), assessed the consequences of the Court of Justice's decision invalidating the Safe Harbor agreement on transfers of personal data from the European Union to the United States. The G29 ... Read more
Protecting databases
The necessary distinction between creation of the constituent elements and specific investment In a ruling dated 12 November 2015, the Cour de cassation reiterated that, in order to justify a rejection of database protection, it is not sufficient to consider that the producer of a database has not provided proof of specific investment to ... Read more
Press law - Outsourcing the role of website moderator does not exempt the publication director from criminal liability
In a ruling handed down on 3 November, the Court of Cassation held that the publication director of a personal contribution space could not rely on the outsourcing of the moderator function to a service provider, or on the provisions relating to the criminal liability of website hosts, in order to absolve himself ... Read more