In Canada, publishers and platforms are preparing for the upcoming federal election and the new regulatory requirements outlined in Bill C-76. The Bill’s advertising-transparency requirements come into force on June 30, or sooner, if an early election is called. As of this date, online platforms will be required to keep a registry of all political and partisan ads they directly or indirectly publish. The penalties for not doing so include fines and possible jail time. Google has made the formal decision to prohibit Canadian political advertising on its platforms for the upcoming federal election. They say that the new ad transparency rules would be too challenging to comply with.
Elections Canada is currently working on legislative guidelines and has invited IAB Canada to engage in this process. If you would like to join our Bill C-76 policy group, please contact Jill Briggs.
Meanwhile in the US, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) takes effect January 1, 2020 and will have profound implications on the digital advertising industry. As the California Attorney General embarks on the rolling out of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), IAB has submitted comments that offer recommendations toward strengthening and improving the law. In particular, they suggested the adoption of regulations that would resolve statutory ambiguities and address implementation gaps, while still satisfying the law’s privacy centric goals. IAB Canada will be hosting a webinar to take our members through the CCPA in the upcoming month.
Earlier this month, Randall Rothenberg, CEO of IAB, also told the U.S. Senate Committee that the organization strongly supports federal regulation to assure consumers’ privacy and security are protected in interactive media, marketing, and commercial environments versus State by State legislation.
Also faced with geographical legislative challenges, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) published an opinion on the interplay between the ePrivacy Directive (ePD) and the GDPR. This opinion addressed questions concerning the powers of enforcement of data protection authorities in situations that fall both in scope of the GDPR and national e-privacy laws.
In summary the Opinion states that:
- Data protection authorities can exercise enforcement powers regarding personal data processing that falls within the material scope of the GDPR.
- Data protection authorities can exercise enforcement powers on data processing operations that fall within the material scope of national ePD laws only to the extent that national law empowers them to do so.
- However, data protection authorities are in any case not limited in the powers to enforce the GDPR because a subset of processing in question falls in scope of the ePD.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday of this week, the European Parliament voted to overhaul current copyright law. The proposed regulations would make platforms responsible for copyright infringements committed by their users. Sites could be required to pay publishers for using snippets of their content in things such as search results. There are many mixed views on this controversial vote and the law will likely have a huge impact on how the internet works in Europe and potentially into North America. As seen with the GDPR, European laws can influence North American policy.
If you would like to receive all privacy updates or are interested in other areas related to policy, please contact Jill Briggs.
Upcoming Policy Webinars
IAB Canada is hosting a Canadian Privacy Webinar on April 10th at 1pm. Invites will be going out next week.
IAB Canada is hosting an encore presentation of the official compliance briefing from the Cannabis Legalization and Regulation Branch of Health Canada is taking place on April 30 at 10:30 am EST. Register here. Members can find the webinar password here.