August

A newly passed bill in the Netherlands has increased the fining power of the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) to up to EUR 810,000 or 10% of an organization 's annual worldwide turnover. The Dutch legislature passed the bill amending the Dutch Data Protection Act (Wet bescherming persoonsgegevens, (WBP)). New fines may be imposed for non-compliance with various obligations of the WBP. The DPA will have the discretion to decide whether a situation justifies either a fixed fine or a fine relative to a company 's revenue. The possibility of issuing a fine relative to a company 's turnover is necessary for the DPA to have an effective enforcement tool in place when dealing with (very) large international organizations, for which the threat of a EUR 810,000 fine would not be sufficiently dissuasive. Currently, the DPA is only authorized to impose an administrative fine of EUR 4,500 for failure to register data processing with the DPA.

On December 18 2014 the UK government published its Anti-corruption Plan. The plan recognises that bribery and corruption are major issues across the public and private sectors and seeks to make the United Kingdom a leader in the global effort to combat them.

The plan gives the National Crime Agency (NCA) the lead role in the fight against corruption and promises the creation of a new central bribery and corruption unit under the aegis of the NCA that will be tasked with boosting the UK response to cases of international corruption and acting as a centre for excellence. Some have read into this an indication of the future of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and have used it to consider whether the SFO should continue in its existing form, or alternatively be remodelled to meet envisaged changes to the investigation and prosecution of economic crime.

"Thousands of foreign criminals who have been convicted of offences outside England and Wales have had their DNA profiles and fingerprint details deleted from British police databases. Alastair MacGregor QC, the biometrics commissioner, has warned the Home Office that this ""obviously unsatisfactory state of affairs"" might be putting the public at unnecessary risk. The commissioner says there is a gap in the law as a result of new rules designed to remove DNA profiles and fingerprints of innocent people from the police national computer. This gap means the biometric details of those arrested but not charged with an offence in Britain cannot be held indefinitely solely because they have been convicted of an offence outside England and Wales."