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So do you feel like whenever you type personal information into a webpage, it probably ends
up in the hands of an executive with dollar signs in his eyes holding court at a mad tea
party of advertisers and people with agendas?
Well, sadly, that's less of a paranoid delusion than I'd like, and it's exactly the kind
of thing that the European Union's new General Data Protection Regulation is trying to stop.
And because it was implemented so recently, plenty of large tech firms have been scrambling
to make sure they don't get caught on the wrong side of the law.
But what exactly does the law do?
So the basic idea is that any organization or business that either operates in the EU
or handles data relating to people in the EU has a few responsibilities.
Meaning that even a business here in Canada like Linus Media Group could find itself in
hot water with the European authority.
If I did something like, let's say, sell your email address to a company that makes explosive
discount power supplies.
But I wouldn't do anything like that to you guys.
Wait a minute.
But that doesn't mean your data can't be sold.
One of the biggest linchpins of the GDPR is consent.
If you're in the EU, you have a right to be informed about what type of data is being
collected and why it's being collected before you hit OK.
And this pertains to lots of different types of data.
A single photo, a comment you made on a public social media post.
And even your name are covered.
GDPR requires companies to specifically lay out each piece of data they're collecting
from you for your consent to be valid.
After you've given your consent and the zuck or whoever else gets their mitts on your sweet
sweet personal information, there are some more rules concerning how they have to store
it.
Specifically, it has to be protected in some way.
Whether it's through encryption or by keeping the data separate from other data that could
be used together to identify an individual person.
So for example, a national ID number should be sequestered from other information.
That could enable an attacker to work out who it belongs to.
And if an attacker does breach a database, or if someone was just careless with a USB
stick, the organization has to inform a data protection authority within three days of
when it found out.
And they'd also be on the hook to notify you, yes you Otto Schmidt from Berlin, in the case
of a really serious breach.
But if a mere notification isn't enough for you and you just want the data off their servers,
the GDPR also obligates companies to give you access to it.
So you can either do it on demand, or to delete your data upon request.
Partly stemming the tide of the internet is forever, with a right to be forgotten.
Though bear in mind that if one of your terrible hot takes gets retweeted a million times, there's
nothing you can do to force private internet users to delete their screencaps.
But back to businesses.
Why would they comply with this?
Well, as it turns out, there are serious consequences for businesses that don't handle your data
with respect.
For willful violations or for repeat offenders, the fines can be as high as 4% per year.
And that's a lot of money.
That's a lot of money.
And that may not sound like much, but for large enterprises like Google, that could
amount to billions, yes, billions of dollars.
So this sounds pretty good if you're an EU resident.
But what if you live in the US, Japan, or Guinea-Bissau?
Well, some tech firms like Facebook and Microsoft are implementing GDPR-compliant features worldwide,
giving users outside the EU the same level of access and control.
But don't imagine this is out of the goodness of their hearts.
In reality, it probably has more to do with the fact that they don't have access to data
protection.
It probably has more to do with it being more streamlined and having different policies
for different locations.
And it's also not a great look from a public relations perspective to give users in certain
places less robust data protection just because they can.
So that's a great step towards a more global internet because I, for one, have had just
about enough of geo-blocking anyway.
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I'll see you next time.