Hogan Lovells has published a study evaluating the ongoing legislative proposal for a new ePrivacy Regulation, a law aimed at updating the current ePrivacy framework in the EU.
After nearly three years of debates and negotiations, the European Union is nowhere near agreeing a position on how to achieve the right balance between the need for technological innovation, public security and the protection of privacy in the context of the digital economy.
On January 12, 2017, prior to the new administration taking power, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration within the Department of Commerce released a Green Paper on “Fostering the Advancement of the Internet of Things,” which assesses the technological and policy landscape of the Internet of Things. The Green Paper is expansive in scope, reflecting the broad range of issues raised in comments submitted by stakeholders in the private sector, academia, government, and civil society following NTIA’s April 2016 request for public comment. The Green Paper identifies key issues, and provides recommendations and assessments on the potential benefits and risks that IoT portends. The NTIA identifies cybersecurity, privacy and cross-border data flows as the most significant policy issues. It also proposes four principles for future policy engagement in which the Department would play a central role in creating conditions that would foster IoT growth. The agency also requested additional comments on the issues raised by the Green Paper.
On April 5, 2016, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration initiated an inquiry to review the potential benefits and challenges presented by the Internet of Things. In its Notice and request for public comment (RFC), NTIA is seeking input on the current IoT technological and policy landscape with a goal of developing recommendations—in the form of a Green Paper—as to whether and how the federal government should play a role in fostering the advancement of IoT technologies.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published its 2015 Digital Economy Outlook (“Report”), a survey of changes and opportunities in, and challenges arising from, the digital economy. The Report identifies three broad trends for member countries and their partners to focus on in digitising their economies.
A controversial report proposing, among other things, a tax on the creation of digital profiles of French consumers is available in English. The tax would encourage privacy-friendly behavior by platforms collecting data, much like a carbon tax, while platform applying the highest level of privacy protections would pay little or no tax.