Coming EU's privacy protection rules, my view
The unintended consequences of the EU’s New set of Data Rules
Known as the General Data Protection Regulation, the EU is embarking, this month, in an ambitious plan to “give more control” to the people on their data online.
The regulation comes timely following the latest scandal from the Cambridge Analytics debable, but it may have regretful consequences. I will explain you why.
Source: Pixabay
The ultimate goal, of such regulation, being the protection framework for data will be in the hand of companies that process this data. Companies, will have to:
- explain how data will be used;
- obtain consent for usage;
- allow users to withdraw, at any point in time, their consent or even demand the deletion of data info
These demands seem reasonable, from the users perspective, and I would somewhat agree. However listen up:
Big multinational will have to spend a huge sum for paying compliance staff, cover admin costs, pay lawyers and consultants. This could trigger a re-thinking of their business models. The big boys such as Google and Facebook will be able to swallow this, however it will hurt smaller players, that is a strong headwind for the startup community in Europe
As usual, European try to solve problems by creating new problems, raising barriers, sure they are not physically real like walls, but still they limit the movement of innovation. This regulation is going to slow Europe down.
That said, the idea and attempt by the EU should be respected, I may say, as privacy is an important matter for all, in today’s digitally-living-world. Yet..our economies depend a lot by data collection.
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