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EU Data Protection Supervisor’s Workshop Examines Role of Privacy in Merger Reviews and Competition Investigations

30 July 2014

In a recent client alert, Hogan Lovells partners from the firm’s London and Washington, D.C. offices highlighted key takeaways for businesses following the European Data Protection Supervisor’s (EDPS) Workshop on Privacy, Consumers, Competition and Big Data.

The workshop, hosted by EDPS in the European Parliament in Brussels on 2 June 2014, discussed the technological advances and market for ‘big data’ analytics and the policy implications for the fields of data protection, competition and consumer protection of the rapidly expanding digital economy in the EU and in other regions, particularly the in US. Around 70 experts attended, including representatives from the European regulators and the US Federal Trade Commission.

A report of the workshop, issued to update the preliminary opinion released in March, notes a number of current regulatory challenges, in particular shortcomings in the application of competition law in the privacy sphere. The EDPS considers that discussion of the issues has generated momentum, or, as the report puts it, that “the genie is out of the bottle”.

Click here for a detailed analysis of the EDPS report and its impact on EU Competition Law.

Authored by the HL Chronicle of Data Protection Team