Laura Melina Rácz

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On 12 February 2019, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) adopted an information note “on data transfers under the GDPR in the event of a no-deal Brexit.” According to the note, as of 30 March 2019, transfers of personal data from the European Economic Area (EEA) to the UK must be based either on Standard or ad hoc Data Protection Clauses, Binding Corporate Rules, Codes of Conduct, Certification Mechanisms or Derogations.
Continue Reading EDPB Issues Note on Data Transfers to the UK in the Event of a No-Deal Brexit

According to press reports, German car giant Volkswagen has banned its employees from using the wildly popular smartphone app Pokémon GO during work hours. Reportedly, the company cited impaired attention and distraction from work as the primary grounds for the prohibition, but data security and privacy issues are supposedly involved as well. Volkswagen has not yet made an official statement on the ban.

This app in particular and augmented reality in general pose many legal questions, especially, in the field of privacy law. The most pressing privacy issue with Pokémon GO seems to be the constant tracking of geolocation data. By agreeing to the Pokémon GO Privacy Policy, the user allows Niantic, the company behind the app, to track the user’s “device location […] and some of that location information, along with [the] user name” any time he or she uses the app.
Continue Reading ‘Pokémon GO’ and Privacy Issues

It is only one example of many, but it grasps the very essence of the issue: In 2013, a New York City coffee shop owner got a tattoo on his right hand saying “I [coffee cup] NY.” Cool, if you are a tattoo fan who also loves coffee. Then he started using an illustration of his tattooed hand as a logo for his shop. Not cool, if you are the New York State Department of Economic Development, which served him with a cease-and-desist letter. In the eyes of the state agency, the use of the tattoo design on the shop’s window was less a reference or a tribute to the famous “I love NY” slogan but rather a plain case of trademark infringement.

Yes, copyright and trademark issues may even emerge from someplace as personal as your skin and the ink decorating it. But there is more to the story.
Continue Reading Tattoo Copyright Cases Give an Inkling of What’s to Come