UK: ICO says update on e-Privacy Directive will be issued in late 2011

http://ow.ly/6Yno8

An article posted on the dataguidance.com website.


This article discusses an announcement that e-Privacy rules in the UK are expected to be revised in 2011.

The article states,

"David Reynolds, Lead Policy Officer at the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), announced ''that the ICO will issue an update on the e-Privacy Directive in late 2011'' during a speech at the DataGuidance 'Data Protection in the Financial Services Sector' event held on 12 October 2011. Attendees at the event - which took place at the London office of Sidley Austin - heard from leading legal and technical experts on the controversial cookie clause, and how European Member States - in particular, France, Sweden and Ireland - have transposed the e-Privacy Directive (2002/58/EC)."

Additional information about changes taking place in the EU Member states rules are also provided in the article.  The author writes, "Geraldine Scali, Associate at Sidley Austin LLP, said: ''[Companies should] carry out a cookie audit, update their privacy policies and notices to include more explicit disclosures on the use of cookies. [Companies should also] evaluate consent options to determine which solution works best from a legal and business perspective. [Finally, they should] review existing arrangements with service providers concerning the collection of data and use of cookies.''

Scali also discussed the transposition process in Ireland, France, Sweden and the UK, where the Directive was implemented recently."

Of additional interesting note, the article qutotes Richard Sedley and John D'Arcy talking about the cookie auditing tool they built to analyse the usage of cookies across a number of industries: ''In the financial services, 49% of used cookies are tracking cookies, 32% are functional cookies, 18% are advertising cookies and 1% are social cookies."