Skip to main content

Europe as digital champion - at what price?


Mark Scott might be right (Europe is fighting tech battle with one hand tied behind its back), European rules may not  create the best climate for all-encompassing digital powers. At first glance, there are also simple answers at hand:  do we want to tolerate a chinese-type surveillance state or adopt an american-type business-is-all-that-counts mindset to be digital champions? Can we, on the other hand, exclude Chinese (think Huawei) or U.S. (Google knows it all, Amazon sells it all, etc.) giants and be digital champions only for ourselves, playing by our own rules? The success of European rules also over Facebook and the like - enter Maximian Schrems - means that we enjoy what these companies developed on the back of the citizens of their countries but we are not able to conquer their lands.
To give a more balanced answer, we need to step one step back. Of course data are not the only force and not the only obstacle (see also on Politico), let us, however, look at them. Data is (or are, if you are less orthodox in language) the new oil, does it say. Power, however, is not in oil but in petrol and petrochemicals. Similarly, the key to real success is what you do with data. Researchers have found ways to link  profile and behavioural data without identifying the persons. One solution is proposed by Accenture, for example. This is more complicated and may be more costly, but can use data of persons in areas outside the U.S. and China, where the example of strict European data protection rules are being followed - South-America, Japan, other parts of Asia and Africa. This is a huge potential which we may lose if we just imitate and do not create our own models.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why is there no article about transmission of data to EU controllers in the GDPR?

There is an article, number 9, in the data protection regulation for EU institutions (Regulation (EU) 2018/1725, called EUDPR). The transmission to other EU institutions or to another controller within the same institution is, however, only subject to recital 21. In the GDPR , even the recitals do not mention transmission of personal data to other European organisations. Of course, the use of processors is regulated in both acts, but not the transmission to another controller. It can be concluded that the transmission to entities under the same legislation is not covered while transmission from EU institutions to entities under a regulation which has a wider scope, is. The reason is clear: protection by the EUDPR is intended to be stricter. For example, EU institutions are not allowed to process data based on legitimate interest. Therefore transmission to another controller, who may process data based on legal bases unavailable for EU institutions, is restricted to cases where the sam...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Transatlantic Data Privacy Framework - new way to transfer personal data to US organisations

 After long negotiations, the new adequacy decision for processing personal data of EU data subjects in the United States resulted in new rules and the setting up of new organisations in the US and an adequacy decision by the European Commission. This enables the transfer of personal data only by organisations in the US who register to the EU-U.S. Transatlantic Data Privacy Framework. Organisations registered to the predecessor of the new framework, the Privacy Shield, retain their registration if they maintained it and continue to fulfil the conditions. The list of organisations registered can be found here: https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/participant-search .   As mentioned above, it is not only the Commission adequacy decision which is new, the United States also undertook a number of measures, in particular concerning the regulation of surveillance of electronic communications, to harmonise the American rules more with the European data protection requirements. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The right to information and data subject access requests

The European Court of Justice dealt with some cases concerning data subject access requests and clarified the scope of certain information to be provided. 1. The right to informationThe data subjects have the right to be informed about how their personal data are processed by the controller. This information has to be provided using a privacy statement which is also called data protection notice. The privacy statement has a set content which serves not only to inform data subjects about which of their personal data are processed and how but also to assure them that their personal data are processed in compliance with EU rules. Some information in the privacy statements is nevertheless general and therefore data subjects can request further information and access to the personal data the controller processes about them. Privacy statements can be displayed on the webpages of the controller. Some controllers publish one comprehensive privacy statement which contains information about vari...
Post a Comment
Read more