In our alert in February we talked about the activities of the Data Protection Supervisor in Hamburg, Dr Johannes Caspar and the proceedings that he said he was starting against three companies for failure to put in place measures to replace Safe Harbor. You can see that alert here.
Dr Caspar published more details of his first three actions yesterday when he said that he had fined Adobe Systems, Punica (a subsidiary of PepsiCo) and Unilever for failure to set up alternative legal channels for cross border data transfers quickly enough. Adobe was fined €8,000, Punica €9,000 and Unilever €11,000. Dr Caspar said that the fines had been reduced as all three companies had put a legal basis for transfer in place after the Supervisor contacted them. He warned that “for future infringements, stricter measures have to be applied”. The fines do seem to be relatively low when set against the theoretical maximum of €300,000.
The Hamburg Supervisor said he had conducted inspections on 35 ‘internationally active companies’. He said some investigations are still running.
The Hamburg action adds to the challenges of data transfer caused by the death of Safe Harbor, the delays and potential terminal threat to the proposed replacement Privacy Shield, and the referral of model clauses to the European Court. We commented on this new case in our alert on 26 May here and we have commented more generally on the setbacks to Privacy Shield here. For explanations of some of the technical terms used in this alert please see our Data Protection Glossary here.
If your organisation was relying on Safe Harbor to legitimise transfers out of the EEA, or you are unsure of how transfers have been legitimised in the past, it is worth investigating and, if required, getting alternative solutions in place now to avoid regulatory action. If you need assistance with how to approach this, please call Cordery:
Office: +44 (0)207 075 1784
jonathan.armstrong@corderycompliance.com
Office: +44 (0)207 075 1785
andre.bywater@corderycompliance.com
The photograph of Dr Caspar is Copyright: © HmbBfDI / Thomas Krenz