Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On February 17, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission announced the launch of their new Office of Technology. The Office of Technology will assist the FTC by strengthening and supporting law enforcement investigations and actions, advising and engaging with staff and the Commission on policy and research initiatives, and engaging with the public and relevant experts to identify market trends, emerging technologies and best practices. The Office will have dedicated staff and resources and be headed by Chief Technology Officer Stephanie T. Nguyen.

On February 14, 2023, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing titled, “Protecting Our Children Online.” Chaired by Sen. Durbin, the hearing examined the potentially harmful effects of social media use on young people, and represented a renewal of the Committee’s efforts to pass legislation to protect children and teenagers online. In 2022, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved several bills designed to enhance the online safety and wellbeing of children and teenagers, among them the Kids Online Protection Act (“KOSA”), but the bills did not receive a floor vote. During the hearing, Democratic and Republican senators expressed their commitment to pass bills that would limit the immunity of social media companies under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and would require website and app developers to design products that protect young people from cyberbullying, online sexual exploitation, social media addiction, and other harms. 

On February 10, 2023, an Illinois federal district court ordered the dismissal of a putative class action lawsuit alleging that an online tool that allowed users to virtually try on sunglasses violated the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act (“BIPA”).

On February 14, 2023, in a Draft Motion for a Resolution on the adequacy of the protection afforded by the proposed EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (the “Framework”), the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (the “Committee”) urged the European Commission not to adopt adequacy based on the Framework, on the basis that it “fails to create actual equivalence” with the EU in the level of data protection that it provides.

As previously posted in our Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives blog, on January 10, 2023, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) published a draft of its Strategic Enforcement Plan (“SEP”) in the Federal Register, which outlines the EEOC’s enforcement goals for the next four years. While the EEOC aims to target a number of new areas – such as underserved workers and pregnancy fairness in the workplace – it is notable that it listed as priority number one the elimination of barriers in recruitment and hiring caused or exacerbated by employers’ use of artificial intelligence (“AI”). 

On February 9, 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) issued its judgment in the X-FAB Dresden case (C-453/21). In this decision, the CJEU clarified the criteria for assessing whether a conflict of interest exists between the Data Protection Officer (“DPO”) position, and other tasks or duties assigned to the DPO.

On February 10, 2023, the California Privacy Protection Agency (“CPPA”) issued an Invitation for Preliminary Comments on Proposed Rulemaking on cybersecurity audits, risk assessments and automated decisionmaking, topics that have not yet been addressed by the existing final draft CPRA Regulations.

On February 6, 2023, Texas State Representative Giovanni Capriglione submitted H.B. 1844, a comprehensive privacy bill modeled after the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (“VCDPA”). The bill could make Texas the sixth U.S. state to enact major privacy legislation, following California, Virginia, Colorado, Utah, and Connecticut. Although the bill closely follows the VCDPA, it departs from the Virginia law in several key areas, most notably in the definition of “personal data” and its applicability.

On January 26, 2023, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) at Hunton Andrews Kurth responded to a call for input from the UK’s Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) on its workplan for 2023 – 2024.

On February 3, 2023, the California Privacy Protection Agency (“CPPA”) Board unanimously approved for submission to California’s Office of Administrative Law (“OAL”) proposed final California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”) regulations released on January 31, 2023 which update the draft CPRA regulations released on November 3, 2022.