Catch up on the latest legal and public affairs developments including the GDPR text confirmation

General Data Protection Regulation

The biggest story to break in this period was the completion of the trilogue negotiations for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) text on 16 December 2015. The compromise between the EU Parliament and Council avoided many of the worst case scenarios that the DMA feared would make it into the final text.

For example, the regulation opted for unambiguous instead explicit in its definition of consent. Unambiguous offers more flexibility to marketers. Such as, being able to contact consumers via post or telephone on an opt-out basis relying on legitimate interest as the legal ground to process data.

The GDPR will not be official until it is published in the EU Journal. Before this happens the regulation needs to be translated into the many languages of the EU by a raft of lawyers and linguists to ensure consistency. The DMA anticipates it will be published in the EU Journal before May or June and once the published the two year implementation phase begins, so will be likely to be law in May or June 2018.

Fundraising

George Kidd, Chief Commissioner of the Direct Marketing Commission (DMC), has been appointed as chair of Fundraising Preference Service (FPS) working group, tasked with setting up the new service. There are no set plans for how the FPS will operate, which is why George Kidd has been called in to chair the group, given his extensive regulatory background in the sector.

The DMA intends to work proactively with new charity regulator, government and other stakeholders to ensure the new FPS operates effectively for fundraisers but also delivers the results consumers expect. The DMA has set up its own FPS working party and, given the DMA’s experience running the preference services, its expertise will be invaluable.

Safe Harbour

The EU Commission and the US continue to debate Safe Harbour 2.0. EU Commissioner Vera Jourova indicated that an agreement may be reached by the end of January. This would be timely as the Article 29 Working Party – the forum for Europe’s national data protection authorities – will then meet to discuss next steps regarding enforcement. However, many commentators are doubtful of such rapid progress given the amount of change needed on the American side in order to provide adequate safeguards to EU citizens’ personal data.

You can read the whole report here.