IAPP Updated CIPP-E Exam Questions and Answers by ayra

 According to the GDPR, consent is one of the six lawful bases for processing personal data. Consent means any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her. Consent can be withdrawn at any time, and the withdrawal of consent must be as easy as giving it. Therefore, an individual can withdraw her consent for processing when she no longer wishes to be sent marketing materials from an organization, as this is a clear indication of her wishes and does not affect the lawfulness of the processing based on consent before its withdrawal. The other situations are not related to consent, but to other lawful bases such as contract, legitimate interest or legal obligation. References: Free CIPP/E Study Guide, page 9; CIPP/E Certification, page 3; GDPR, Article 4(11), Article 6(1)(a), Article 7(3).

The Data Retention Directive was a EU law that required providers of electronic communications services to retain certain data, such as traffic and location data, for a period of between six months and two years, for the purpose of preventing, investigating, detecting and prosecuting serious crime1. However, in 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union declared the Directive invalid, because it violated the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data, as enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU2. The Court found that the Directive entailed a wide-ranging and particularly serious interference with those rights, without being limited to what is strictly necessary3. One of the reasons for this finding was that the Directive applied to all individuals, all means of electronic communication and all traffic data without any differentiation, limitation or exception, thus affecting the entire population of the EU4. The Court also noted that the Directive did not provide sufficient safeguards to ensure effective protection of the data against the risk of abuse and unlawful access, and did not require the data to be retained within the EU5. References: 1 Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC2 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union3 Press release No 54/14 - Judgment in Joined Cases C-293/12 and C-594/12 Digital Rights Ireland and Seitlinger and Others4 Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 8 April 2014. Digital Rights Ireland Ltd v Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and Others and Kärntner Landesregierung and Others. Requests for a preliminary ruling from the High Court (Ireland) and the Verfassungsgerichtshof (Austria). Joined cases C-293/12 and C-594/125 Ibid.

Cross-border processing is defined in Article 4(23) of the GDPR as either:

•processing of personal data which takes place in the context of the activities of establishments in more than one Member State of a controller or processor in the Union where the controller or processor is established in more than one Member State; or

•processing of personal data which takes place in the context of the activities of a single establishment of a controller or processor in the Union but which substantially affects or is likely to substantially affect data subjects in more than one Member State.

Therefore, the factors that are relevant for identifying whether the processing could be considered a cross-border processing are:

•the location and number of establishments of the controller or processor in the EU;

•the connection between the processing and the activities of the establishments;

•the substantial effect or likelihood of substantial effect on data subjects in more than one Member State.

The total number of the data subjects interested is not necessarily a factor, as the processing could affect only a few data subjects but still have a substantial impact on them. For example, a processing that involves the disclosure of sensitive personal data of a small group of data subjects in different Member States could be considered a cross-border processing.

References:

•GDPR Article 4 - Definitions1

•Guidelines 8/2022 on identifying a controller or processor’s lead supervisory authority2

According to the European Data Protection Law & Practice textbook, page 326, “the CJEU held that the search engine operator is obliged to remove from the list of results displayed following a search made on the basis of a person’s name links to web pages, published by third parties and containing information relating to that person, also in a case where that name or information is not erased beforehand or simultaneously from those web pages, and even, as the case may be, when its publication in itself on those pages is lawful.” However, the CJEU also stated that “the operator of the search engine as the person responsible for that processing must, at the latest on the occasion of the erasure from its list of results, disclose to the operator of the web page containing that information the fact that that web page will no longer appear in the search engine’s results following a search made on the basis of the data subject’s name.” Therefore, SearchCo must notify the newspaper that it is delisting the article, as part of its obligation to respect the data subject’s right to be forgotten. References:

European Data Protection Law & Practice, page 326

CJEU Judgment in Case C-131/12 Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, Mario Costeja González, paragraphs 88 and 93