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Tech Giants Brace for Europe’s New Data Privacy Rules

nytimes.com

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Re: Tech Giants Brace for Europe’s New Data Privacy Rules

#21

Post by ckastner »

roel_v wrote: post #11
discordance wrote: post #3

Good time to be a contractor who knows about GDPR compliance

In what way? Genuinely curious - what sort of technical work needs to be done that requires actually knowing the regulation? I'm asking because I got my law degree with the idea that I would combine tech skills with knowledge of the law, but I never really found an angle to make that work.

Have you tried the financial sector?

Banks, especially, are inundated with regulations (high-level, abstract) that necessitate technical (low-level, concrete) implementations or adaptations. Often, there are great legal minds at work on the one side, and great technical minds on the other side, with a large gap and significant barriers communication in between.

Being proficient in both of these matters can enable one to bridge that gap.

Re: Tech Giants Brace for Europe’s New Data Privacy Rules

#22

Post by sqdbps »

At first glance this seems like a solely pro privacy development but it's really a further effort to go after US tech companies with some nasty side effects:

>Among their provisions, the rules enshrine the so-called right to be forgotten into European law

Codifying a terrible ruling into law.

>The rules also require anyone under 16 to obtain parental consent before using popular digital services

It's like COPA but at least an order of magnitude worse.

>... the company unveiled a program that uses artificial intelligence to monitor Facebook users for signs of self-harm. But it did not open the program to users in Europe... The social network has also kept out of Europe facial recognition software that tracks when photos of users are posted across the platform.*

It hinders innovation, and these examples are probably the least of it.

It is very much apparent that these rules were meant for US companies but they will very likely hinder the growth and even the formation of smaller companies that in turn will have to dedicate non trivial resources to insure compliance. Inadvertently or not the EU have introduced a huge barrier to entry.

Re: Tech Giants Brace for Europe’s New Data Privacy Rules

#23

Post by orbifold »

literallycancer wrote: post #12
thanksgiving wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just glad it is based on revenue instead of profits. I think corporate taxes should be the same way. I imagine the four percent had to be large enough to motivate compliance without scaring people away and further fueling anti-EU sentiment? I'm just speculating.

What anti-EU sentiment? The only anti-EU sentiment inside the EU comes from populist politicians and the people who vote for them, who have no idea how the EU works. And what non-EU entities think is, frankly, irrelevant.

That must be why almost any time an EU related thing was put up for a popular vote it was rejected by the people. I can think of Maastricht, the EU „Constitution“, which was rejected and then rebranded and simply put up for vote 2 years later, the Bailouts and Austerity („elections can‘t change economic policy“, according to Dr. Schäuble), most recently Brexit. Allegedly it is always populists that ruin everything, but at least in the case of the EU constitution and the Bailouts there was legitimate criticism that was largely surpressed and ignored.

Re: Tech Giants Brace for Europe’s New Data Privacy Rules

#24

Post by skummetmaelk »

sqdbps wrote: post #22

At first glance this seems like a solely pro privacy development but it's really a further effort to go after US tech companies with some nasty side effects: >Among their provisions, the rules enshrine the so-called right to be forgotten into European law Codifying a terrible ruling into law. >The rules also require anyone under 16 to obtain parental consent before using popular digital services It's like COPA but at…

>it's really a further effort to go after US tech companies

That makes no sense. The rules are not different for US companies so how can it be an attack on them?

>The social network has also kept out of Europe facial recognition software that tracks when photos of users are posted across the platform.

Are you sad about this? If so, why?

Re: Tech Giants Brace for Europe’s New Data Privacy Rules

#25

Post by lhopki01 »

orbifold wrote: post #23
literallycancer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What anti-EU sentiment? The only anti-EU sentiment inside the EU comes from populist politicians and the people who vote for them, who have no idea how the EU works. And what non-EU entities think is, frankly, irrelevant.

That must be why almost any time an EU related thing was put up for a popular vote it was rejected by the people. I can think of Maastricht, the EU „Constitution“, which was rejected and then rebranded and simply put up for vote 2 years later, the Bailouts and Austerity („elections can‘t change economic policy“, according to Dr. Schäuble), most recently Brexit. Allegedly it is always populists that ruin everything, b…

That posits that you can have a legitimate vote on something as complex as an EU treaty. Voting on a one off decision in any sensible way requires that people understand what they are voting about really well which is essentially impossible.

Voting for a government doesn't require that level of in depth knowledge because you are voting on wether you feel the direction of the country is right and you can then change that decision in a few years time.

Re: Tech Giants Brace for Europe’s New Data Privacy Rules

#26

Post by boobsbr »

ckastner wrote: post #21
roel_v wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way? Genuinely curious - what sort of technical work needs to be done that requires actually knowing the regulation? I'm asking because I got my law degree with the idea that I would combine tech skills with knowledge of the law, but I never really found an angle to make that work.

Have you tried the financial sector? Banks, especially, are inundated with regulations (high-level, abstract) that necessitate technical (low-level, concrete) implementations or adaptations. Often, there are great legal minds at work on the one side, and great technical minds on the other side, with a large gap and significant barriers communication in between. Being proficient in both of these matters can enable one…

YUGE impact in the financial sector.

Re: Tech Giants Brace for Europe’s New Data Privacy Rules

#27

Post by adrianN »

sqdbps wrote: post #22

At first glance this seems like a solely pro privacy development but it's really a further effort to go after US tech companies with some nasty side effects: >Among their provisions, the rules enshrine the so-called right to be forgotten into European law Codifying a terrible ruling into law. >The rules also require anyone under 16 to obtain parental consent before using popular digital services It's like COPA but at…

Hindering the kind of innovation that violates the citizen's privacy is pretty much the point of the law. A company having a database of my mental health status is incredibly creepy to me. As is the facial recognition thing.

Re: Tech Giants Brace for Europe’s New Data Privacy Rules

#28

Post by avianlyric »

sqdbps wrote: post #22

At first glance this seems like a solely pro privacy development but it's really a further effort to go after US tech companies with some nasty side effects: >Among their provisions, the rules enshrine the so-called right to be forgotten into European law Codifying a terrible ruling into law. >The rules also require anyone under 16 to obtain parental consent before using popular digital services It's like COPA but at…

I don't think this is a very well through out opinion of GDPR. GDPR applies equally to all companies that trade in Europe, not just US companies. So it's difficult to describe it as an attack on US companies.

Additionally GDPR simply enshrines some pretty basic social norms around informed consent and transparency. It doesn't prevent anyone doing anything that's privacy invasive, it just requires that:

1) You tell people what you are doing with their data (in plain English)

2) You get their informed consent and give them the option to opt-out (additionally you can't bundle multiple "purposes" together).

Both of those things seem pretty fair to me, and it certainly a standard that we apply to other aspects of life (with sex being the most obvious example).

So Facebook could train their self-harm detecting AI in the EU, and it can deploy it there. It just needs to ask and get consent from people first, and honour their personal choices.

Equally they could train and deploy their face recognition technology in the EU as well. But again they need to get informed consent, and they can't coerce people by only offering their self-harm technology if they also opt into their face recognition technology (they can't bundle multiple "purposes").

Altogether I think that this is pretty simple and fair, and really technology companies are only suffering because in the past they have collected personal data indiscriminately on the basis that it might be useful some day. And for companies that rely on tricking people into handing over personal data, I don't think the world will suffer without them.

Re: Tech Giants Brace for Europe’s New Data Privacy Rules

#29

Post by nerdponx »

sqdbps wrote: post #22

At first glance this seems like a solely pro privacy development but it's really a further effort to go after US tech companies with some nasty side effects: >Among their provisions, the rules enshrine the so-called right to be forgotten into European law Codifying a terrible ruling into law. >The rules also require anyone under 16 to obtain parental consent before using popular digital services It's like COPA but at…

Codifying terrible a ruling into law.

Care to elaborate?

Re: Tech Giants Brace for Europe’s New Data Privacy Rules

#30

Post by sqdbps »

skummetmaelk wrote: post #24
sqdbps wrote: post #22

At first glance this seems like a solely pro privacy development but it's really a further effort to go after US tech companies with some nasty side effects: >Among their provisions, the rules enshrine the so-called right to be forgotten into European law Codifying a terrible ruling into law. >The rules also require anyone under 16 to obtain parental consent before using popular digital services It's like COPA but at…

>it's really a further effort to go after US tech companies That makes no sense. The rules are not different for US companies so how can it be an attack on them? >The social network has also kept out of Europe facial recognition software that tracks when photos of users are posted across the platform. Are you sad about this? If so, why?

> The rules are not different for US companies so how can it be an attack on them?

That seems like a disingenuous question, the companies that are mainly impacted by these laws are US companies. It might theoretically apply to all companies but in reality they had a handful of US companies in mind when they wrote theses regulations.

As for the impeded innovation question, yes I feel that something is lost when a "cool" and useful feature is prevented from materializing.

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