The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from the EU is taking effect. The law poses major challenges for businesses and developers, but provide substantial new powers to consumers and users.
The EU laws on data protection and privacy takes affect on all individuals inside the European Union and the European Economic Area. Also addressing the export of personal data outside the EU and EEA, the GDPR's aim is to give more control to users over their personal data, and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU.
GDPR is regarded as the biggest data protection laws since then 1990s. It's a replacement to Data Protection Directive, EU's previous law governing data protection.
The regulation expands the scope of what companies must consider personal data.
It requires them to closely track the data they have stored on EU residents. If someone in the EU wants a company to delete his or her data, receive copies of their data, or correct an error in the data, those companies have to comply. EU residents can also object to specific ways companies are using their data.
The law also requires companies to notify its EU users if data breach happened within 72 hours.
The regulation applies to a broad array of personal data.
This includes a person's name and government ID numbers. It also protects information that can show a person's activity on both online and in the real world. The data includes location information, IP addresses, cookies and other data that lets companies track users as they browse the internet.
To meet the requirement of this law, many websites on the web are either shutting down their activities completely. others beg users to remain as their subscribers as the rule came into force on Friday, April 25th 2018.
Larger and more powerful companies force users to new terms of service. From Google to Facebook, Twitter and Oath, have all updated their terms to meet the EU's requirement.
The deadline to comply with the law has been extended for two years, ever since the European Parliament adopted it in April 2016. But since the Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal, privacy advocates in the EU found an example of why internet users might want more control over who can access their data.
The GDPR came up several times during CEO Mark Zuckerberg's testimony before the U.S. Congress in April, and it was a major focus when members of the European Parliament questioned Zuckerberg in Brussels.
"I think the GDPR in general is going to be a very positive step for the internet," said Zuckerberg.
And not just websites are affected by the rules. PC hardware makers and smarthome product manufacturers have also issued updates to their devices to meet the regulations.
There are also many other companies that are taking whatever it takes to meet the compliance, even if they must block all European users from accessing their servers.
External Link: https://gdpr-info.eu/