Australia announced a new Office of the National Data Commissioner to oversee a new data sharing and release framework, while Western Australia announced plans to introduce new data sharing legislation. Bavaria's Police Task Act has been criticized for having ambiguous surveillance language. The U.S. House Committee on Veterans Affairs passed legislation to improve data sharing and modernize electronic health records. Illinois is considering a bill to amend the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act, and New Jersey announced a new civil enforcement unit to protect residents' online privacy and cybersecurity. Read about this and more in this week's Privacy Tracker legislative roundup.

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Australia announced a new Office of the National Data Commissioner will oversee the data sharing and release framework across all government entities, PS News reports. 
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Western Australia plans to introduce new data sharing legislation with protections for personal information.
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Bavaria’s Police Task Act is aimed at broadening police powers but has been criticized by legal professionals and civil rights advocates who argue the surveillance language sets an ambiguous threshold, Aljazeera reports.
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The U.S. House Committee on Veterans Affairs passed the Veterans’ Electronic Health Record Modernization Oversight Act of 2017, which will provide congressional oversight for plans to move to Cerner EHR, and the VA Maintaining Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks Act of 2018, which will bolster data sharing between the department and community care providers, Healthcare Informatics reports. 
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The Illinois legislature is considering a bill that would amend the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act to exempt companies and individuals who collect biometric data “exclusively for employment, human resources, fraud prevention or security purposes,” Cook County Record reports. 
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New Jersey’s Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal announced plans to create a new civil enforcement unit, the Data Privacy & Cybersecurity Section, to oversee residents data privacy and cybersecurity by bringing affirmative civil actions against violators, TAPinto.net reports. 
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ICYMI

As we near the end of the Bulgarian presidency of the Council of the European Union, which has said it hopes to finalize the draft of the ePrivacy Regulation before its remit ends June 30, IAPP Westin Fellow Müge Fazlioglu, CIPP/E, CIPP/US, analyzes how the Council draft of the ePrivacy Regulation has evolved for Privacy Tracker.
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US

A U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s health subcommittee held a meeting on the Overdose Prevention and Patient Safety Act aimed at aligning the HIPAA Privacy Rule with enhanced privacy protections for substance use disorder patients, HealthITSecurity reports.
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U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton is leading a movement to eliminate the top White House cybersecurity role currently held by Rob Joyce, Politico reports.
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The Missouri Senate passed a bill to outlaw nonconsensual pornography. Under the proposed legislation, threatening to disseminate or distribute a nonconsensual sexually explicit image would be a felony, the Kansas City Star reports.
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AFRICA

African nations are left with a patchwork of ineffective and unenforceable data safety laws, with only 23 of the 55 countries having passed or drafted personal privacy laws and only nine data protection authorities spread throughout the continent, Quartz reports.
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ASIA-PACIFIC

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said it will consider adopting a U.S.-style data sharing regulation, the Korea Herald reports.
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EUROPE

Network and Information Security Directive, the first cybersecurity law to cover the entire European Union, has now gone into effect and will require entities ranging from water and energy services to search engines and cloud computing service providers to report any cybersecurity breaches to national authorities, EURACTIV reports.
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The Bulgarian presidency has published a new draft version of the proposed ePrivacy Regulation for the relevant delegations of the Council of the European Union.
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Italy’s Competition and Markets Authority has fined WhatsApp $3.6 million for its practices of sharing user data with Facebook, Competition Policy International reports.
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LATIN AMERICA

After Prosecutors filed a civil action accusing Microsoft of violating the country’s laws on privacy and consumer protections, the Brazilian federal court has ruled Microsoft must make opting out of providing personal data easier for Windows 10 users, ABC News reports.
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MIDDLE EAST

Egypt’s Parliament passed legislation requiring ride-hailing apps to share passenger data with the country’s security agencies when requested, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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