I finally finished with my thesis and after a long hiatus I am ready to post daily here for a solid week to see how I like it and If I am willing to stay here for good. My thesis coincidentally was about "The protection of the consumer and the general terms of transactions" and so It gave me insight on this recently implemented law for the protection of the citizen/consumer's personal data.
What is GDPR?
GDPR stand for General Data Protection Regulation and it consists of (I wish I was joking) hundrends of pages which regulate the responsibility that every business or person of law who collects your personal information has in a very strict way. In a nutshell, people and companies that you have given your personal data information and are operating in Europe must never share your information with third parties, must inform you on how they process your information, must also inform you of what are your rights between your personal information and the way the company process your information, they must also give you the right to order them to delete all your personal information from their database and cancel your email subscription at any time you wish permanently and finally they must give you ways to communicate with the holder of your information.
What Kind of personal data?
Well any kind of data you can imagine is essentially protected in this new regulation. For example, your name -home addresses, religion, race etc... Think of all the information you provide when you open a new account on a website. All this information if it is your real information is considered your personal data and it is important for the party that has just received them, to protect them and to assume full responsibility to never misuse them.
I am an American/non European citizen why should I care?
Well even if you are a non European person, every single person that operates in Europe and holds your personal information must also protect your information and abide by this new regulation regardless on where you live on this planet. On top of that, American and other worldwide companies which hold the personal data of European citizens must also operate under the same regulation and protect the data of every single EU citizen that they happen to hold their personal information! It is only a matter of time before all countries operate under the same regulation for all citizens worldwide as they are already forced to do so only for EU citizens.
It is extremelly critical to remember the recent Facebook scandal and how horribly personal information was already being handled. It would only make sense that America inevitably will follow this new strict regulation fully.
Conclusion
GDPR is extremely strict, but it is strict to businesses and not to the consumer. It forces the businesses that have mishandled your information to very harsh punishments and it makes everyone who holds your personal data to finally treat them with the respect that your personal data deserve. Or at least that is what this regulation promises us. I can only hope that GDPR is as good as I would like it to be, and that we will not experience any more Facebook like personal data mishanlding scandals.