Personal privacy, information security, and data protection are significant issues in the U.S., the European Union ("EU"), the United Kingdom ("UK") and a number of other jurisdictions where we offer our solutions. The regulatory framework governing the collection, processing, storage, and use of certain information, particularly financial and other PII, is rapidly evolving. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with applicable privacy, security, or data protection laws, regulations, or industry standards may materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.
We expect that there will continue to be new proposed and adopted laws, regulations, and industry standards concerning privacy, data protection, and information security in the U.S., the EU, and other jurisdictions in which we operate. For instance, the California Consumer Privacy Act (the "CCPA") became effective on January 1, 2020. The CCPA gives California residents expanded rights to access and delete their personal information, receive detailed information about how their personal information is used and shared by requiring covered companies to provide new disclosures to California consumers (as that term is broadly defined), and provide such consumers rights to opt-out of certain sales of personal information. The CCPA provides for potential civil penalties for violations, as well as a private right of action for data breaches that is expected to increase data breach litigation. The California Privacy Rights Act (the "CPRA"), which expands the CCPA, passed in November 2020 and went into effect on January 1, 2023, potentially requiring still to be determined additional compliance investment and potential business process changes. Among other things, the CPRA imposes additional data protection obligations on companies doing business in California, including additional consumer rights processes, limitations on data uses, new audit requirements for higher risk data, and opt outs for certain uses of sensitive data. It has also created a new California data protection agency authorized to issue substantive regulations which could result in increased privacy and information security enforcement. Additionally, other U.S. states are proposing and enacting laws and regulations that impose obligations similar to the CCPA or that otherwise involve significant obligations and restrictions. If passed, such laws will require additional resources to ensure compliance, and may have potentially conflicting requirements that would make compliance challenging.
Privacy and cybersecurity laws continue to evolve to impose ever stricter standards for the collection, use, dissemination and security of personally identifiable information, including financial information. Actual, potential, or perceived violations of such laws could result in regulatory investigations, fines, orders to cease/change our use of such technologies and processing of personal data, as well as civil claims including class actions, reputational damage and ongoing compliance costs, any of which could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. Moreover, federal, and state regulation around artificial intelligence may be expected in the near future, including developments in response to the recent Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence issued on October 30, 2023.
Similarly, the European Economic Area (the "EEA") (comprised of the EU Member States and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679) (the "EU GDPR") in May 2018 and the UK implemented the EU GDPR by virtue of section 3 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 which sits alongside the UK Data Protection Act 2018 (known as the "UK GDPR", and together with the "EU GDPR", the "GDPR"). The GDPR has a direct effect where an entity is established in the EEA or the UK and has extra-territorial effect where an entity established outside of the EEA or UK processes personal data in relation to the offering of goods or services to individuals in the EEA and/or the UK or the monitoring of their behavior. The GDPR imposes a number of obligations on controllers, including, among others: (i) accountability and transparency requirements which require controllers to demonstrate and record compliance with the GDPR and to provide more detailed information to data subjects regarding processing; (ii) enhanced requirements for obtaining valid consent where consent is the lawful basis for processing; (iii) obligations to consider data protection as any new products or services are developed and to limit the amount of personal data processed; (iv) obligations to comply with data protection rights of data subjects including a right of access to and rectification of personal data, a right to obtain restriction of processing or to object to processing of personal data and a right to ask for a copy of personal data to be provided to a third party in a useable format and erasing personal data in certain circumstances and the right not to be subject to solely automated decision-making; (v) obligations to implement appropriate technical and organizational security measures to safeguard personal data; and (vi) obligations to report certain personal data breaches to the relevant supervisory authority without undue delay (and no later than 72 hours where feasible) and affected individuals, where the personal data breach is likely to result in a high risk to their rights and freedoms. Processors are required to notify the controller without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal data breach.
In addition, the EU GDPR prohibits the international transfer of personal data from the EEA to countries outside of the EEA unless made to a country deemed to have adequate data privacy laws by the European Commission or a data transfer mechanism in accordance with the EU GDPR has been put in place or a derogation under the EU GDPR can be relied on. In July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the "CJEU") in its Schrems II ruling invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework, a self-certification mechanism that facilitated the lawful transfer of personal data from the EEA to the U.S., with immediate effect. The CJEU upheld the validity of standard contractual clauses ("SCCs") as a legal mechanism to transfer personal data but companies relying on SCCs will need to carry out a transfer privacy impact assessment ("TIA") which, among other things, assesses laws governing access to personal data in the recipient country and considers whether supplementary measures that provide privacy protections additional to those provided under SCCs will need to be implemented to ensure an ‘essentially equivalent' level of data protection to that afforded in the EEA. The EU and U.S. governments have recently advanced the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework to foster EU-to-U.S. data transfers and address the concerns raised in the aforementioned CJEU decision, but it is uncertain whether this framework will be overturned in court like the previous two EU-U.S. bilateral cross-border transfer mechanism to replace the EU-US Privacy Shield framework. The UK GDPR imposes similar restrictions on transfers of personal data from the UK to jurisdictions that the UK does not consider adequate. The UK Government has published its own form of the EU SCCs, known as the International Data Transfer Agreement and an International Data Transfer Addendum to the new EU SCCs. The UK Information Commissioner's Office ("ICO") has also published its own version of the TIA and guidance on international transfers, although entities may choose to adopt either the EU or UK-style TIA. Further, on September 21, 2023, the UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology established a UK-U.S. data bridge (i.e., a UK equivalent of the Adequacy Decision) and adopted UK regulations to implement the UK-U.S. data bridge ("UK Adequacy Regulations"). Personal data may now be transferred from the UK under the UK-U.S. data bridge through the UK extension to the DPF to organizations self-certified under the UK extension to DPF. This may have implications for our cross-border data flows and may result in additional compliance costs.
The GDPR also introduces fines of up to €20 million (under the EU GDPR) or £17.5 million (under the UK GDPR) or up to 4% of the annual global revenue of the noncompliant company, whichever is greater, for serious violations of certain of the GDPR's requirements. The GDPR identifies a list of points to consider when determining the level of fines to impose (including the nature, gravity and duration of the infringement). Data subjects also have a right to compensation for financial or non-financial losses (e.g., distress). Complying with the GDPR may cause us to incur substantial operational and compliance costs or require us to change our business practices. Despite our efforts to bring practices into compliance with the GDPR, we may not be successful either due to internal or external factors such as resource allocation limitations or a lack of vendor cooperation. Non-compliance could result in proceedings against us by governmental entities, regulators, customers, data subjects, suppliers, vendors or other parties. Further, there is a risk that the measures will not be implemented correctly or that individuals within the business will not be fully compliant with the new procedures. If there are breaches of these measures, we could face significant administrative and monetary sanctions as well as reputational damage which may have a material adverse effect on our operations, financial condition and prospects.
The E.U. has also proposed the draft ePrivacy Regulation which, once finalized and in effect, will replace both the ePrivacy Directive and all the national laws implementing this Directive. The ePrivacy Regulation, as proposed in its current form, would impose strict opt-in marketing rules, change rules about the use of cookies, web beacons, and related technologies, and significantly increase penalties for violations. It would also retain the additional consent standards as required under the EU GDPR. Such regulations may have a negative effect on businesses, including ours, that collect, process, and use personal data in the EU and UK, including online usage information for consumer acquisition and marketing and may increase the potential civil liability and cost of operating a business that collects, processes, or uses such information and undertakes online marketing.
From a cybersecurity perspective, the GDPR does not provide for a specific set of cybersecurity requirements or measures to be implemented, but rather requires a controller or processor to implement appropriate cyber and data security measures in accordance with the then-current risk, the state of the art, the costs of implementation and the nature, scope, context and purposes of the processing. The GDPR however does explicitly require that controllers notify personal data breaches as described above.
On January 17, 2023, the EU Network and Information Systems Security 2 Directive ("NISD2") entered into force and will take full effect following implementation into EU Member State law (i.e., by October 17, 2024). Under the NISD2, more stringent cybersecurity and incident reporting requirements are imposed on ‘essential' and ‘important' entities, which include information and communication technology ("ICT") managed service providers.
NISD2 states that any maximum fine which national implementing law provides for should at least be set at €10 million or 2% of total worldwide turnover, whichever is higher, where essential entities are concerned. Other sanctions may include (i) a temporary suspension to provide services in the EU (by suspending relevant authorizations/certifications); (ii) an order to make public certain elements of the infringement and/or inform customers; and (iii) injunctions to immediately cease infringing conduct. Importantly, NISD2 also provides that senior members of staff can be held personally liable, and face administrative fines or be temporarily suspended from exercising managerial functions at the legal representative or chief executive officer level.
On January 16, 2023, the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act ("DORA") entered into force and will apply from January 17, 2025. DORA imposes regulatory obligations to reinforce the digital operational resilience of entities operating in the financial services industry, and to adequately manage and remediate risks related to the engagement of ICT third-party service providers. DORA only imposes direct regulatory obligations on ICT third-party service providers that are considered ‘critical' within the meaning of DORA. Non-critical ICT third-party service providers are only indirectly impacted by DORA, by virtue of the mandatory contractual terms that DORA requires financial entities to implement with ICT third-party service providers.
DORA does not provide for minimum or maximum monetary sanctions but empowers EU Member State competent authorities to enforce DORA and determine the appropriate sanction on the basis of the factors set out in DORA, including the gravity and duration of the infringement. Sanctions may be administrative or criminal in nature, and DORA also provides that individual members of the management body can be held personally liable for any non-compliance.
We cannot yet fully determine the impact these or future laws, rules, and regulations may have on our business or operations. Any such laws, rules, and regulations may be inconsistent among different jurisdictions, subject to differing interpretations or may conflict with our current or future practices. Additionally, we may be bound by contractual requirements applicable to our collection, use, processing, and disclosure of various types of information including financial and PII, and may be bound by, or voluntarily comply with, self-regulatory or other industry standards relating to these matters that may further change as laws, rules, and regulations evolve.
Any failure or perceived failure by us, or any third parties with which we do business, to comply with these laws, rules, and regulations, or with other obligations to which we or such third parties are or may become subject, may result in actions or other claims against us by governmental entities or private actors, the expenditure of substantial costs, time, and other resources, or the incurrence of fines, penalties, or other liabilities. There is also a risk that we could be impacted by a cybersecurity incident that results in loss or unauthorized disclosure of personal data, potentially resulting in us facing harms similar to those described above. In addition, any such action, particularly to the extent we were found to be guilty of violations or otherwise liable for damages, would damage our reputation and adversely affect our business and results of operations.