Facebook’s Efforts to Squash Scrutiny of the EU-US Privacy Shield

Currently, Facebook is before the Supreme Court in Ireland asking to curtail judicial powers that allow courts to refer questions on the EU-US Privacy Shield Agreement to the CJEU. This is part of an ongoing litigation of Max Schrems, who was still an Austrian law student at the start of the litigation, against the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) in the jurisdiction of Ireland where Facebook currently holds its EU headquarters for tax and company law purposes. The litigation has the capacity to change the face of the transatlantic relationship, not least now, at a critical juncture of fragility and uncertainty and represents an extraordinary step.

Die Zeugen Jehovas und das Datenschutzrecht

Scheinbar geht es nur um eine Petitesse in dem Streitfall der EuGH-Rechtssache C-25/17. Vordergründig geht es um die kleine Frage, ob die Zeugen Jehovas als Religionsgemeinschaft bei Hausbesuchen den besonderen Bestimmungen des europäischen Datenschutzrechts unterliegen. Doch wie zu zeigen sein wird, geht es um mehr, um wichtige Fragen des europäischen Datenschutzrechts und seiner Anwendbarkeit generell sowie um die Reichweite für den gesamten kirchlichen Bereich.

Who Controls a Facebook Page?

Days after the General Data Protection Regulation has entered into force, data protection and social networks are in the news again: Last Tuesday, the ECJ has decided that the administrator of a Facebook page is jointly responsible, along with Facebook itself, for processing personal data of Facebook users and persons visiting the page hosted on Facebook via web tracking.

Dashcams: Wenn die ZPO erlaubt, was das Datenschutzrecht verbietet

Mit Dashcams den Verkehr aufzuzeichnen, kann nach einem Unfall in einem zivilrechtlichen Haftpflichtprozess sehr nützlich sein - obwohl man das datenschutzrechtlich eigentlich nicht darf. Der BGH hat in dieser Woche zwei rechtliche Problemlagen geklärt, die deutsche Gerichte seit geraumer Zeit beschäftigt haben: Zum einen betrifft dies die datenschutzrechtliche Zulässigkeit des Einsatzes von Dashcams im öffentlichen Verkehrsraum. Zum anderen deren zivilprozessuale Verwertbarkeit, insbesondere wenn die Aufnahmen rechtswidrig erfolgten.

From DNA Tracing to DNA Phenotyping – Open Legal Issues and Risks in the new Bavarian Police Task Act (PAG) and beyond

Is Germany facing a tidal shift in police powers? Does the border between the prosecution of criminal offences and the prevention of looming dangers, which has so far been regarded as self-evident and constitutionally necessary, fall? Will people who are suspected of maybe committing crimes in the future only on the basis of statistical data or non-individualized investigative approaches be preventively restricted in their fundamental rights and even imprisoned in the long term? Is Germany on the way to comprehensive predictive policing, for which considerable risks of discrimination will be accepted? These questions arise from the critics of the draft act on police tasks, which the Bavarian state government intends to pass this week. Beside drones and online seizure one of the crucial investigative issues is the so called “DNA phenotyping”.

Harnessing Artificial Intelligence the European Way

Will 10 April 2018 be remembered by many as the day of Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before the US Senate? The hearing was covered by the media in all aspects down to the tie he was wearing. But that was not the only important event taking place on that day, and maybe not even the most important one: I am talking about the Declaration on Cooperation in Artificial Intelligence, signed on the same day but hardly noticed. And yet its impact in the long term might exceed that of the current scandal about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica by far.