Effective from 2 October 2023, Ukraine has ushered in a series of substantial amendments to its Advertising Law, aimed at modernizing advertising regulations and harmonizing them with the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive.
In first-of-its-kind legislation, under SB 54, California will require venture capital companies to collect and report diversity data from portfolio company founders as soon as 1 March 2025. The new Fair Investment Practices by Investment Advisers law intends to increase transparency regarding the diversity of founding teams receiving venture funds from covered entities in California.
On 8 November 2023, join thought leaders from government, the judiciary, academia, and private practice for this timely gathering on the Georgetown Law campus in Washington, DC. Laws and policy surrounding the protection of trade secrets are changing as technology evolves. In this first-of-its-kind event at Georgetown, intellectual property experts will discuss the following topics: How generative AI is transforming the trade secret landscape, the role of non-competes, protecting against leaks of confidential information, the impact of China’s emerging trade secret protection landscape on global commerce, and the future of trade secrets in the US and abroad.
On 13 September 2023, the Communication Space & Technology Commission of Saudi Arabia proposed a draft law on Global Digital Content Safe Harbor. The proposed law is aimed at providing a legal framework for intermediary service providers hosting and transiting global digital content in Saudi Arabia in a way that ensures no objection, deletion or modification of content hosted in and accessible within the Kingdom. If adopted, the effect of the draft law may be significant as it seeks to create a more favorable environment for investment in the Kingdom’s digital economy, and it would align the local legal framework with the international best practices.
By means of Resolution No. 198/2023, published in the official gazette on 18 October 2023, the Agency of Access to Public Information (AAIP) approved the model contractual clauses included in the Implementation Guide of Model Contractual Clauses for International Personal Data Transfers of the Ibero-American Data Protection Network (MCC and IADPN, respectively).
On 8 October 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed two bills into law amending the California Consumer Privacy Act. AB 947 classifies citizenship and immigration status as “sensitive personal information” subject to special protections under the CCPA, while AB 1194 strengthens reproductive privacy rights. Both bills carried the unanimous endorsement of the California Privacy Protection Agency. Details for each bill are described below followed by actionable guidance businesses can take to prepare now before these laws go into effect on 1 January 2024.
On 24 May 2023, the Belgian Data Protection Authority (DPA), the authority responsible for enforcing the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation in Belgium, issued a major decision (“Decision”) concerning information exchanges pursuant to the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The Decision declares the information reporting required of the Belgian tax authority and Belgian financial institutions under FATCA to be unlawful because it violates the privacy rights and protections afforded to Belgian residents under the GDPR, as well as the rights to a private life and protections of personal information guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
The Notification of the Personal Data Protection Committee re: Designation of a Data Protection Officer under Section 41 (2) of the Personal Data Protection Act B.E. 2562 (2019) B.E. 2566 (2023) (“PDPC Notification re: DPO Designation”) has been published in the Government Gazette on 14 September 2023. This notification will be effective from 13 December 2023. While most of the requirements under the PDPC Notification re: DPO Designation remain unchanged from its draft version, the published version specifies a minimum number of data subjects that would trigger the large-scale criteria and the data controller’s obligation to designate a data protection officer.
If you are a data broker or a business that relies on data brokers for targeted advertising, you should be aware that the California Data Broker Law will be significantly changed under the California Delete Act, which was signed into law by California Governor Newsom on 10 October 2023. Under the act, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) is required to set up, by 1 January 2026, an accessible deletion mechanism where consumers can request deletion via the CPPA that all data brokers then have to honor.
The Australian Government has released its much-anticipated response to the Commonwealth Attorney-General Department’s report on its review of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). The Report recommended wholesale amendments to Australia’s principal privacy legislation and contained 116 proposals for consideration by the government.