Monthly Archives: May 2016

General Data Protection Regulation: German DPAs demanding more staff and financial resources

Posted on by
Reply

On 24 May 2016, the Data Protection Regulation has entered into force. From 25 May 2018 it will be directly applicable in all European Member States. Not only companies or authorities therefore now have two years to adapt their data processing activities to future requirements. The national legislature must consider the applicable data protection regulations in its Member State for compliance with the future regulations.

Against this background, the conference of the independent German data protection authorities (“conference”), in a resolution of 25 May 2016 (German), calls on the German legislator to provide the data protection authorities with more staff and financial resources so they can effectively meet their assigned duties.
Continue reading →

No more “Stoererhaftung”?

Posted on by
Reply

What was for a long time associated with high liability risks and warning letters from lawyers, will now be made easier by the German government: Free wifi-hotspots.  The German government has decided to modify the so called “Stoererhaftung” – the liability of the operator of a wifi-hotspot for any infringements of law committed through the hotspot. However, even though rumor still has it a few days after the presentation of the draft for the new German Teleservices Act, this does not mean that operators of wifi-hotspots now will not be liable for whatever happens through their hotspot. To speak of a complete abolition of “Stoererhaftung” is a bit too much, at least at the moment.

Continue reading →

Patrick Breyer v Federal Republic of Germany: Dynamic IP addresses = Personal Data? And Is German Data Protection Law too Restrictive?

Posted on by
Reply

Today, Attorney General Campos Sánchez-Bordona has delivered his Opinion in the Patrick Breyer v Federal Republic of Germany case before the ECJ (C-582/14; you can find the Opinion here in just about any language except English)).

We recall: The Bundesgerichshof (the highest court in Germany for all civil and criminal matters) submitted to the ECJ the following two questions:

“Must Article 2(a) of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data 1  — the Data Protection Directive — be interpreted as meaning that an Internet Protocol address (IP address) which a service provider stores when his website is accessed already constitutes personal data for the service provider if a third party (an access provider) has the additional knowledge required in order to identify the data subject?”

“Does Article 7(f) of the Data Protection Directive preclude a provision in national law under which a service provider may collect and use a user’s personal data without his consent only to the extent necessary in order to facilitate, and charge for, the specific use of the telemedium by the user concerned, and under which the purpose of ensuring the general operability of the telemedium cannot justify use of the data beyond the end of the particular use of the telemedium?”

Continue reading →

Add-on Modules under the GPL: “Derivative Works” despite separated distribution

Posted on by
Reply

If your add-on modules are dynamically loaded into GPL-licensed software at runtime, you’ll have to license the add-on modules under the GPL’s terms when distributing them along with the GPL-licensed software; it is a clear-cut case of a “derivative work” under the License. The case is less clear, however, if the add-on module is distributed separately from the GPL-licensed software, as may, for example, happen where the recipient has already installed the GPL-licensed software from a different source. Continue reading →