With days before the 30 April “orientation date” for national capitals to submit their economic recovery plans to the European Commission for assessment, the EU’s economic powerhouses this week submitted their national reform and spending plans in order to get a share of the mammoth €800 billion post-COVID Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).  As the initial brains behind the landmark Recovery Fund, which, for the first time in EU history, will be funded by Member States’ joint debt, German Finance Minister...

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This article is part of Portolano Cavallo’s “INFORM@Digital & IP” Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. | With a recent decision, the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM or “ICA”) brought renewed focus to the increasing intersection between consumer protection rules and personal data protection rules. Specifically, the ICA fined Telepass (a company providing payment systems and toll services to drivers) and its subsidiary, Telepass Broker, EUR 2 million for having received information about users from car insurance companies and brokers without adequately informing users...

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On 26 April 2021, the Litigation Chamber of the Belgian Data Protection Authority (BDPA) handed down its first fine specifically for cybersecurity failures. This decision follows others where the Litigation Chamber considered cybersecurity failures as a factor among others (see e.g. decision of 22 January 2021), and it should serve as a signal for other organisations: all controllers and processors must ensure that the technical and organisational measures they have taken to keep personal data secure are appropriate. Otherwise, the bill...

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