{"id":235,"date":"2014-03-10T14:27:36","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T21:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/tradeandtaxation\/?p=235"},"modified":"2014-04-06T22:38:07","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T05:38:07","slug":"data-protection-where-does-processing-occur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/2014\/03\/10\/data-protection-where-does-processing-occur\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Protection:  Where does \u201cProcessing\u201d Occur?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The EU Data Protection Directive, implemented by individual member states, is to be applied even where the data controller is located outside the EU, but uses equipment located within the EU to process that personal data.\u00a0 The High Court of Berlin has been reviewing a case brought against Facebook by the Federation of German Consumer Organisations.\u00a0 The group claimed that Facebook was in breach of German <a title=\"Data Privacy: A Practical Guide\" href=\"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/tradeandtaxation\/data-privacy\/\">data protection law<\/a> by sending emails to non-users without their consent through use of the \u201cFriend Finder\u201d feature.<\/p>\n<p>Most significantly, the High Court placed particular importance on the use of cookies.\u00a0 Holding that Facebook, as a data controller, used \u201cequipment\u201d in Germany when it placed cookies on the devices of German users, regardless of whether they were Facebook users.\u00a0 This is significant since Facebook, a US company argued that any German data was controlled and processes from its operations in Ireland and therefore, Irish data protection laws applied to it.\u00a0 Yet the High Court held that Facebook did not provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate that its Irish operations actually made the decisions expected from a data controller, rather the US operations was the decision maker.<\/p>\n<p>This ruling is contrary to that handed down by the Schleswig-Holstein Administrative Court of Appeals last year, \u00a0which ruled that Facebook was not subject to local\u00a0 (German) data protection laws. \u00a0The Administrative Court of Appeals did not address the question of whether the Irish or US operations controlled the processing of German users\u2019 personal data.\u00a0 Rather found that the Irish operation\u2019s participation of the blocking of anonymous accounts was sufficient to render a decision.<\/p>\n<p>This most recent decision is important since most online advertising companies use cookies to track consumer preferences in order to more specifically target relevant advertising materials.\u00a0 Should this decision stand it is likely that characterizing the placement of cookies onto a consumer\u2019s device as using equipment would subject US companies, in particular, to much closer scrutiny by many countries.<\/p>\n<p>Need assistance? Please <a title=\"Contact\" href=\"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/tradeandtaxation\/contact\/\">contact us<\/a> and see how we can help.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\">SHARE THIS:<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The EU Data Protection Directive, implemented by individual member states, is to be applied even where the data controller is located outside the EU, but uses equipment located within the EU to process that personal data.\u00a0 The High Court of Berlin has been reviewing a case brought against Facebook by the Federation of German Consumer &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/2014\/03\/10\/data-protection-where-does-processing-occur\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Data Protection:  Where does \u201cProcessing\u201d Occur?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264,"href":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/intersticeconsulting.com\/ibtt\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}