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Dr. Viola Bensinger

Viola Bensinger is Global Co-Chair of the Greenberg Traurig’s IP & Technology Practice Group and the Global Data Privacy & Cybersecurity Practice, and also chairs the Technology Practice in Germany. She advises clients from the technology, media, health care, automotive and other industries.

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The newly published German Coalition Agreement 2025 (CA 2025), German language version available here, outlines a digital agenda of the new German government, aimed at strengthening Germany’s position as a leader in digital innovation, data protection, and technological sovereignty. This GT Alert provides an overview of key digital policy areas that the CA 2025…

  1. Full Steam Ahead: The European Union’s (EU) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act in Action — As the EU’s landmark AI Act officially takes effect, 2025 will be a year of implementation challenges and enforcement. Companies deploying AI across the EU will likely navigate strict rules on data usage, transparency, and risk management, especially for high-risk AI
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On Aug. 1, 2024, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) entered into force and will gradually take effect over the next 36 months. This marks not only the end of yet another legislative saga within the European Union but also the beginning of a new era in AI regulation. The AI Act creates an…

On 13 March 2024, the European Parliament adopted the AI Act. Since the EU Commission presented its first draft almost three years ago, the use of AI and general purpose AI models has increased significantly. Hence, the regulatory proposal was (and still is) the subject of hefty debate.

Continue reading the full GT Alert.

  1. Cybersecurity Rules by the SEC and the EU – Both the Security and Exchange Commission’s public company cybersecurity disclosure and breach notification rules as well as the implementation of the EU NIS 2 Directive will drive increased focus from management and the board on cybersecurity risks, preventive measures, and incident response. Expect to see another
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  1. An Increase in Extortion-Only Cyber Attacks – While ransomware attacks have been on the rise since 2020, a recent trend has emerged where threat actors are bypassing ransomware malware and encryption tactics and going straight to data theft. If a victim company does not pay the extortion demand, the threat actors engage in increasingly aggressive
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After an extended sunset period, time to replace the “old” SCCs runs out on Dec. 27, 2022. After that date, the old SCCs will no longer legalize data transfers to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). To avoid compliance risks associated with illegal transfers of personal data, any old SCCs should be updated to…

With its adoption of an adequacy decision pursuant to Art. 45 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the Republic of Korea on Dec. 17, 2021, the European Commission has declared that the country provides an adequate data protection level comparable with GDPR standards.

Click here to read the full GT Alert.

The new Telecommunications Telemedia Data Protection Act (TTDSG) (link in German) is the result of a clean-up campaign in German data protection law. The TTDSG, which became effective 1 December 2021, merges the data protection regulations in telemedia and telecommunications law that were previously scattered across a wide array of German laws.

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So much has been said about the new Cross-Border standard contractual clauses (SCC), which the EU Commission finally adopted on 4 June 2021 (see GT blog post from 9 June 2021), that it almost went unnoticed that the Commission published two different kinds of SCC that day. The other set of SCC (the DPA-SCC)…