Today we are taking a look at the difference between DPO and CPO roles in the US, the present and future impact of Privacy Tech in the management of privacy programs, the evolution of privacy regulation under the new US administration, and a potential Schrems III scenario. 

Andy Dale serves as General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer at OpenAP and holds the position of Executive Board Member at The L Suite (TechGC). With extensive experience as an advisor to various companies, Andy previously worked as General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer at Alyce, a company acquired by Sendoso in 2024, and as General Counsel and VP of Global Data Privacy at SessionM, which was acquired by Mastercard in 2019. Andy Dale earned a JD in Law from the University of Baltimore School of Law (2003-2006) and a degree from Colgate University (1996-2000).

References: 

• Andy Dale on LinkedIn
• The Data Protection Breakfast Club podcast on Spotify
• Brian Focht: Can the American Privacy Rights Act find a path to survival? (Masters of Privacy)
• Amy Worley on the American Privacy Rights Act (Masters of Privacy)
• Molly Martinson on state-level comprehensive privacy laws (Masters of Privacy)

Where is the UK data protection reform headed? How are we to deal with behavioural advertising in the context of sports betting and gambling? Will the UK stay clear of regulating or supervising AI à la EU? 

Tim Turner has worked on Data Protection, Freedom of Information (FOI) and Information Rights law since 2001. He started at the Information Commissioner’s Office as a Policy Manager on FOI issues. After that, he was a Data Protection & FOI Officer for two councils and then an Information Governance Manager for an NHS (National Health Service) organisation. He has been offering data protection training and consultancy since 2011. Also, Tim is the author of the very popular DPO Daily newsletter and LinkedIn feed. 

References:

• Tim Turner on LinkedIn
• 2040 Training
• The DPO Daily on LinkedIn
• ICO: Action taken against Sky Betting and Gaming for using cookies without consent
• UK betting giants under fire for ads targeting at-risk gamblers (The Guardian)
• UK Data Reform: What’s Proposed (Bird & Bird)
• Stephen Almond (ICO): data protection laws as a primary tool for AI governance (Masters of Privacy)

Theodore Christakis is Professor of International and European Law at University Grenoble Alpes (France), Director of the Centre for International Security and European Law (CESICE), Director of Research for Europe with the Cross-Border Data Forum, Senior Fellow with the Future of Privacy Forum and a former Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the New York University Cybersecurity Centre. 

He is also Chair on the Legal and Regulatory Implications of Artificial Intelligence with the Multidisciplinary Institute on AI, and has been a member of the French National Digital Council, currently serving as a member of the French National Committee on Digital Ethics as well as a member of the International Data Transfers Experts Council of the UK Government. 

With Theodore we have gone through “the good”, “the bad”, and “the ugly” in the EDPB Opinion on LLMs and personal data. We have also examined the Deepseek affair, as well as the challenges posed by hallucinations in generative AI. 

References:

• Théodore Christakis’ SSRN Author Page
• Théodore Christakis on LinkedIn
• EDPB opinion 28/2024 on certain data protection aspects related to the processing of personal data in the context of AI models
• Discussion Paper: Large Language Models and Personal Data (Hamburgische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit)
• Lokke Moerel: using personal data in the development and deployment of AI models (Masters of Privacy)
• Théodore Christakis, ‘European Digital Sovereignty’: Successfully Navigating Between the “Brussels Effect” and Europe’s Quest for Strategic Autonomy 
• Théodore Christakis, Cyber-Attacks – Prevention-Reactions: The Role of States and Private Actors
• Multidisciplinary Institute on AI
• Université Grenoble Alpes: Centre d'études sur la sécurité internationale et les coopérations européennes.

It is time for a seasonal update at the intersection of Marketing, Data, Privacy and Technology. As usual, this Newsroom is divided into five blocks: ePrivacy & regulatory updates; MarTech & AdTech; AI, Competition and Digital Markets; PETs and Zero-Party Data; and Future of Media.

TL;DL: The use of SDKs for data collection/sharing has been a common factor in various fines and lawsuits on both sides of the pond. The EDPB sparked an important debate on personal data-powered AI in the EU. Texas and California went after Allstate and Honda respectively. La Liga (ES), Netflix (NL), Meta (IR), and others received fines. The FTC put an end to personal data sales by General Motors. The My Health My Data Act (WA) was put to the test. AI “reasoning” models exploded, and then AI Agents followed. Garante (IT) blocked DeepSeek and a class action in Germany could have a major impact across the EU. Australia updated its legal framework. The biggest CDP players dissolved into adjacent markets and Google kept marching towards PET-powered AdTech.

All references and links can be found in this episode’s blog post.

Daniel Solove has just published a new book, On Privacy and Technology. We went through a few key concepts from it, and also had a chance to revisit other core ideas in the author’s work. 

Professor Solove is the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor of Intellectual Property and Technology Law at the George Washington University Law School. One of the world’s leading experts in privacy law, Solove is the author of more than 10 books and 100 articles about privacy. He has also written a children’s fiction book about privacy. He is one of the most cited law professors in the law and technology field. Professor Solove has been interviewed and quoted in hundreds of media articles and broadcasts and has been a consultant for many Fortune 500 companies and celebrities. It is to him that we owe the famous taxonomy of privacy harms, as well as very recent papers on Privacy and AI or Privacy and Data Scraping.

References:

• Daniel J. Solove on Bluesky
• Daniel J. Solove on LinkedIn
• Daniel J. Solove’s personal page
• On Privacy and Technology: Oxford University Press, Amazon. 
• The Great Scrape: The Clash Between Scraping and Privacy
• Artificial Intelligence and Privacy

What is the best way to address privacy risks in the context of connected cars? Is data minimization compatible with assisted driving? What is the meaning of “Core Vehicle Data”?

Mark Jaffe leads the Rivian ethics, compliance and privacy program. This includes ethical culture, compliance oversight, privacy, and investigations. 

Prior to joining Rivian, Mark was Senior Vice President for Privacy at Teleperformance, a global business process outsourcer with over 400,000 employees operating in over 80 countries, spending almost two years in Singapore managing privacy issues in the Asia Pacific region. He has also dealt with data protection compliance in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.  Prior to that, Mark spent 17 years at AT&T in global privacy roles as well as global compliance and ethics roles.

Our guest is a frequent speaker on a variety of topics related to privacy compliance and data ethics. Mark earned his B.A., cum laude, from Duke University and his J.D., cum laude, from Northwestern University. 

References:

• Mark Jaffe on LinkedIn
• Rivian’s Privacy Hub
• FTC bans General Motors from selling driving data without permission, adding to case for CarPlay 2 (9to5Mac, January 2025)
• 800,000 EV drivers’ data exposed in Volkswagen breach (The Register, January 2025)
• Privacy Not Included, a Mozilla Report about connected cars and privacy (“It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy”, September 2023)
• Investigation by Netherlands' DPA prompts changes to Tesla security cameras (IAPP, 2023)
• Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars (Reuters, 2022)
• Privacy4Cars

An update was due at the intersection of MarTech/AdTech and the My Health My Data Act, with a Washington Consumer Protection Act case against Costco paving the way for the recent class action lawsuit involving the Amazon Ads SDK. Also, the date is approaching for compliance with restrictions on international transfers of US personal data.

Mike Hintze is a well-known leader in the field with more than 20 years of experience in privacy and data protection. He has been a partner at Hintze Law since 2016 and prior to that was Chief Privacy Counsel at Microsoft for 18 years. He also teaches privacy law at the University of Washington school of law and has served on multiple advisory boards. He has also testified before Congress, state legislatures or European regulators. 

References:

• Mike Hintze on LinkedIn
• The Washington My Health My Data Act - Parts 1 to 10 (Hintze Law)
• New U.S. Regulations Impose Significant Restrictions on Cross-Border Data Flows
• AI governance, MHMD, and third-party risks at PSR 2024 (Masters of Privacy)
• Written summary: P.S.R. Los Angeles 2024: Vendor Audits; My Health, My Data
• Amazon Sued in First 'My Health, My Data' Privacy Dispute.

As of today, February 16th, Google’s platform policies allow the collection, sharing and usage of IP addresses and other signals across websites, apps, gaming consoles or Connected TV. This has been perceived as a direct contradiction of the company’s long-term anti-fingerprinting policy. The company is expecting that a growing reliance on Privacy Enhancing Technologies will do away with the resulting privacy risks. 

Daniel B. Rosenzweig is the Founder & Principal Attorney at DBR Data Privacy Solutions. He advises clients on legal and technical compliance with data privacy and AI laws, and counsels companies on industry mobile app store requirements, AdTech, and privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs).

Daniel’s legal practice is unique in that he develops and codes technical solutions to help serve as a bridge between legal, marketing, and technical teams, in addition to providing clients the usual legal services.

References:

• Daniel B. Rosenzweig on LinkedIn
• DBR Data Privacy Solutions
• Google: Overview of the Platforms programs policies update (February 2025)
• ICO: Our response to Google’s policy change on fingerprinting
• AdExchanger: Does Google’s U-Turn On Fingerprinting ‘Open New Opportunities’ Or Is It ‘Irresponsible’?
• Peter Craddock: ePrivacy exceptions, advertising, analytics, the limits of consent and server-side processing (Masters of Privacy)
• Sergio Maldonado on PETs and AdTech: Some takeaways from PEPR’24 (USENIX Conference on Privacy Engineering Practice and Respect 2024) 

This was a really eventful week for AI regulation, with the first rules of the AI Act starting to apply on Sunday, February 2nd and the EU Commission releasing Guidelines on Tuesday (prohibited practices) and Thursday (scope of AI systems). To cap it all, a first-ever class action under the new framework (alongside the GDPR and the Digital Services Act) was filed on Wednesday against X-Twitter and TikTok. 

The following conversation with Markus Wünschelbaum, with a particular focus on digital advertising and AdTech, preceded and rightly anticipated these developments. 

Dr. Markus Wünschelbaum currently serves as Policy and Data Strategy Advisor to Hamburg’s Data Protection Commissioner Thomas Fuchs. In this role, he advises on key data protection & AI policies and strategic initiatives. Previously, he was responsible for imposing fines, fundamental GDPR issues, and freedom of information. He began his career focusing on the intersection of labor law and data protection, having published an acclaimed doctoral thesis on this topic and working at an international law firm.

References:

• Dr. Markus Wünschelbaum on LinkedIn
• Hamburg’s Data Protection Commissioner (Der Hamburgische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit)
• Guidelines on prohibited artificial intelligence (AI) practices, as defined by the AI Act (EU Commission)
• Guidelines on AI system definition to facilitate the first AI Act’s rules application (EU Commission)
• Class Actions Filed Against TikTok and X in Germany: A Test for the DSA, GDPR, and AI Act (Spirit Legal - Peter Hense)
• Peter Hense (Spirit Legal) on Masters of Privacy
• Luca Bertuzzi (Euractiv)

Alex Dittel leads KHQ’s Data Privacy, Cyber and Digital legal practice. He brings over 15 years of experience in data protection, information security and technology commercial matters acquired during his time working for big and small technology companies and law firms in the United Kingdom and Australia. As a passionate GDPR-native data privacy lawyer, he advises on Australian as well as international data privacy matters. He holds CIPP/A, CIPP/E and CIPP/US certifications from the IAPP.

References:

• Alexander Dittel on LinkedIn
• KHQ: Data Privacy, Cyber and Digital
• Alex Dittel: OAIC’s decision a warning re use of facial recognition technology
• First Tranche of Australia’s Privacy Law reforms explained (Association of Corporate Counsel)