Author: Harry Guinness / Source: howtogeek.com
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new European Union law that takes effect today, and it’s the reason you’ve been receiving non-stop emails and notices about privacy policy updates. So how does this affect you? Here’s what you need to know.
The new GDPR law takes effect today, May 25th, 2018, and it covers data protection and privacy for EU citizens, but it also applies to a lot of other countries in various ways, and since all the tech giants are huge multi-national corporations, it affects a lot of the stuff that you use on a daily basis.
The Problem GDPR is Trying to Solve: Companies Are Collecting and Abusing Your Personal Info
Since the dawn of the internet, companies have been gathering as much data as possible on anyone they can. It’s simple to collect that information, so there’s no reason for them not to hoard it.
The problem is that over the last few years, lots of companies have been caught failing to protect—or outright abusing—your personal information. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, where a researcher used a Facebook quiz to gather huge amounts of data on millions of Facebook users and then sold it to a consulting firm, is only the most recent example. The Equifax hack last year was particularly bad because the information leaked could be used to open credit cards. And those are just the big scandals. Lots of companies have been misusing your data in smaller ways, like selling it on to third party advertising companies.
The EU has taken a dim view of the situation and is using the GDPR to try and rectify it. Under the new laws, companies that don’t adequately protect consumer data or misuse it in any way face huge fines.
What is Considered Personal Data?
The GDPR protects “personal data,” which here means “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person”—and that’s a pretty broad definition. In reality, personal data is generally going to include things like:
- Biographical data such as your name, address, phone number, social security number, and so on.
- Data relating to your physical appearance and behaviour such as hair color, race, and height.
- Information about your education and work history such as your salary, college degree, GPA, tax ID, and so on.
- Any medical or genetic data.
- Things like your call history, private messages, or geo-location data.
This is far from a complete list. The key is that any data that makes you identifiable counts. In certain circumstances, your hair color may be enough. In others, even your full name—if it’s something common like Robert Smith—might not make you identifiable.
What Does the GDPR Do?
The GDPR gives EU residents who are having their personal data collected—called “data subjects” in the law—eight rights. They are:
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