IT Law Fundamentals Quiz

IT Law Fundamentals

• EU jurisdictions require additional conditions for processing communication content in sensitive situations (e.g., explicit authorization from Privacy Authorities for processing healthcare data).
• Businesses seek to collect more personal data for business opportunities.
• Users demand higher privacy protection due to pervasive IT use, potentially endangering data confidentiality (digitalization of privacy).
• Disagreements arise regarding appropriate levels of data protection.

Data Protection and Surveillance of Shared Data

• It's unclear under which law shared data and information are protected when used with IT devices.
• Factors considered include:
  • The law of the client's location.
  • The user's national law.
  • The law of the company managing the digital device.
  • The law of the server location.
  • Optional legislation in data/information insertion processes.

Conflicting Data Protection Rules

• Conflicting rules in various countries generate data collection and treatment issues.
• Different privacy policies and protection levels arise.
• Managing these discrepancies is difficult for businesses due to varying territorial applications.
• Legislations often establish varying territorial scopes for applying data protection rules (data release locations).
• Risk of legal overlapping and uncertain applicable rules can discourage individuals from sharing online data.

Techniques to Escape Data Protection Rules

• Companies employ various techniques to circumvent data protection regulations (U.S. and EU).
• Common techniques include:
  • De-identification.
  • Anonymization.
  • Pseudonymization.

Personal Information Identifiers

• Personal information may contain direct or indirect identifiers.
  • Direct identifiers: data that identify a person without extra info (name, phone number, government IDs).
  • Indirect identifiers: data that indirectly identify individuals (date of birth, gender, location, cookies, IP address, license plate numbers).
• De-identified data meets U.S. privacy standards but not EU, which requires anonymized data for compliance (GDPR).

Scope of "Personal Data"

• "Personal data" is the core of data protection law (GDPR Article 2(1))
• Data considered personal: any information relating to an identifiable natural person (data subject). Identifiable persons can be directly or indirectly defined by identifiers (name, ID, location, etc.).
• Data that isn't personal is not under data protection laws

Definition of Personal Data

• Personal data is defined as information about a natural person (not a legal entity).
• Data can be in various formats (alphabetic, numeric, video, images).
• Includes both objective and subjective information

Identifiable Individuals

• The Breyer case (Case C-582/14) clarified that a dynamic IP address is personal data, even if the identification method involves several means.
• Identifiability isn't restricted to a single person having the information; the totality of means to identify the person is considered.

Risk of Identification

• The risk of re-identification can be negligible for data classified as anonymous by legislation.
• Data that is practically impossible to re-identify falls into this category.

De-identification

• De-identification methods involve removing personal identifiers.
• Includes different approaches, tools, and algorithms.
• Is crucial for government agencies, businesses for data sharing/research. Medical research greatly benefits.

Anonymization Methods

• Anonymization is a subset of de-identification.
• This method removes personal identifiers irreversibly, preventing re-identification.

Pseudonymization

• Pseudonymization replaces personal identifiers with artificial identifiers (pseudonyms) to reduce re-identification risks.
• Separately maintained information is key, as are technical safeguards.
• EU legislation defines pseudonymization as the data processing that detaches personal data from the original user.

Data Hierarchy Based on Risk

• A hierarchy of data categories based on re-identification risk shows that:
  • Personally Identifiable Data (highest risk) has direct and indirect identifiers.
  • De-Identified Data (undefined risk) has identifiers removed.
  • Pseudonymous Data (remote risk) uses artificial identifiers and safeguards.
  • Anonymous Data (zero risk) has technical safeguards preventing re-identification.

U.S. Privacy Law

• U.S. privacy laws define "data not reasonably linkable" based on several conditions:
  • Data should be de-identified.
  • The company should publicly commit to not re-identifying it.
  • Downstream recipient re-identification must be contractually prohibited.

De-identification Methods (NIST)

• Five common methods for de-identification (NIST 2010):
  • Suppression.
  • Averaging.
  • Generalization.
  • Perturbation.
  • Swapping.

EU Privacy Law (GDPR)

• The GDPR does not apply to identifying data that has been made completely anonymous.
• It's stricter than the US standard and requires demonstrable anonymity (no re-identification risk).
  • Includes additional factors or risk levels needed for data to be anonymous under EU law.

Information to E-customers

• Clear communication of data collection information to end-users.
  • Essential information to include:
    • Company details.
    • Data usage explanations
    • Categories of the personal data the company is interested in.
    • Legal justification for data processing.
    • Data preservation duration.
    • Other recipients of the data.

EU Data Protection Law - Entities

• Two main entities in data processing:
  • Data controller: sets purposes and means of data processing
  • Data processor: manages data on behalf of the controller (typically third parties).
• Contracts define processors' responsibilities, especially after data processing agreement termination.

Joint Control

• Organizations can have a joint control relationship when they decide jointly the 'why' and 'how' of data processing.
• A joint control arrangement and responsibilities are defined in relation to GDPR provisions. This is communicated to the relevant data subjects.

Web Cookies

• Web cookies are messages websites exchange with browsers.
• Used for user identification, session management, and page customization.
• Some cookies are short-lived (session), while others persist (persistent).
• Legislation exists and is evolving to limit privacy violations regarding the use of cookies.