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How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop

smashingmagazine.com

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Re: How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop

#81
post #44

>GDPR will require developers to know the legal and policy landscape of their profession. (This has been the norm for other fields for centuries: how embarrassing for us.) Favourite takeaway.

I thought that was needlessly snarky. I'm pretty sure other fields rely on lawyers to know the relevant legal landscape just like we do.

No. Professionals in engineering or the trades have to know the regulations that govern their industry and abide by them.

What many SVers call "innovation", other industries would call "reckless".

How embarrassing for us!

EDIT: In terms of regulation, we're practically chiropractors.

Re: How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To use a silly extreme: if a new law came out that said I couldn’t yell profanities at my customers, I’m already compliant.

Counterexample: comedy central now has to work to redact all noncompliant programming. Best practices are funny because context and history are important. Actual regulation is not so forgiving.

Good point—guess this is not as black and white as I first thought!

Re: How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop

#83
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a business decides to opt-out of doing business with the EU as a result, what measures do they need to take? Would a banner asking "Are you an EU citizen? Yes/No" suffice? Or would we have to use some kind of Geo IP tool? How would that defend against EU citizens using a VPN or Tor, and what would a business's liability be in that case?

Not all organisations will need to be compliant with GDPR. By that I mean, if your organisation only do marketing in, for example, the US and Canada, only accepts USD/CAD and they are no legitimate appearance that you do/want to do business in Europe, you are not required to be GDPR compliant, even if an european customer goes on your website and purchases a product/service. If your website accepts Euros, has multipl…

Is that interpretation or is there actually language to this effect in the regulations?

Re: How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can any site just 'do an end run around' the law by requiring their users to agree to allow them to collect whatever data they collect now or that they've already collected? No: a consent from a user must be for granular information with a specific listed purpose.

How granular? Every field? Every character? Every bit?

You’re thinking about it in terms of pieces of information, but GDPR thinks about it more in terms of the uses of that information. You wouldn’t expect to ask a user “Can we store your email address?“. The granular action for storing the email address is “Can we email you from time to time product offers?”. Once the user consents then that email address (and potentially full name, etc etc) can only be used for that consented action.

Re: How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop

#85

What's troubling to me is that it's very unclear what specifically is required. I know the linked post isn't legal advice, but in the page about 'privacy by design' linked to by the origin link, they list "Minimize the amount of collected data" as as an item (supposedly to be achieved to be in compliance with the law). What's the minimum amount of data? Who decides that? Is it dependent on context? I'd hope so! Can a…

Another bad sentence (from the original link):

> What do you do about users who have used plaintext or silly passwords?

I don't even know what to write about that. The whole tone of the page is lecturing – about "fundamental human rights"! – and yet it's suggested that developers handle "plaintext or silly passwords"!

Re: How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop

#86
post #17

I will show you another case, company that isnt "bitching" over laws that are good for all humans not just EU and does the right thing, you know backblaze, right? "The changes that are being made by companies such as Backblaze to comply with GDPR will almost certainly apply to customers from all countries. And that’s a good thing. The protections afforded to EU citizens by GDPR are something all users of our service…

So nice to see progress in privacy but please someone explains how GDPR will help EU startups!

GDPR is inevitably going to hinder any new company forced to abide by it. So the next Uber/Wechat will first flourish in US/China/Russia and then come to the EU, not the other way around.

Entrepreneurs / investors also want their time & money to be used to build value first rather than solve yet another accidental complexity that is irrelevant until your revenue model is proven.

What am I missing? Is GDPR implementation cost marginal?

Re: How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How granular? Every field? Every character? Every bit?

You’re thinking about it in terms of pieces of information, but GDPR thinks about it more in terms of the uses of that information. You wouldn’t expect to ask a user “Can we store your email address?“. The granular action for storing the email address is “Can we email you from time to time product offers?”. Once the user consents then that email address (and potentially full name, etc etc) can only be used for that c…

> You’re thinking about it in terms of pieces of information, but GDPR thinks about it more in terms of the uses of that information.

That seems sensible but is that really based on the actual text of the law or is this just your own summary?

Re: How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re thinking about it in terms of pieces of information, but GDPR thinks about it more in terms of the uses of that information. You wouldn’t expect to ask a user “Can we store your email address?“. The granular action for storing the email address is “Can we email you from time to time product offers?”. Once the user consents then that email address (and potentially full name, etc etc) can only be used for that c…

> You’re thinking about it in terms of pieces of information, but GDPR thinks about it more in terms of the uses of that information. That seems sensible but is that really based on the actual text of the law or is this just your own summary?

Oh, absolutely only my own interpretation based on the reading I’ve been doing. IANAL and I’ve only skipped through the legal text.

Re: How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop

#89
post #86
post #17

I will show you another case, company that isnt "bitching" over laws that are good for all humans not just EU and does the right thing, you know backblaze, right? "The changes that are being made by companies such as Backblaze to comply with GDPR will almost certainly apply to customers from all countries. And that’s a good thing. The protections afforded to EU citizens by GDPR are something all users of our service…

So nice to see progress in privacy but please someone explains how GDPR will help EU startups! GDPR is inevitably going to hinder any new company forced to abide by it. So the next Uber/Wechat will first flourish in US/China/Russia and then come to the EU, not the other way around. Entrepreneurs / investors also want their time & money to be used to build value first rather than solve yet another accidental complexit…

It is very costly for existing (!) companies, for startups it comes with fraction of cost, if taken into account from first line of code, from first create table. In few years it will be normal.

Re: How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop

#90
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that was needlessly snarky. I'm pretty sure other fields rely on lawyers to know the relevant legal landscape just like we do.

No. Professionals in engineering or the trades have to know the regulations that govern their industry and abide by them. What many SVers call "innovation", other industries would call "reckless". How embarrassing for us! EDIT: In terms of regulation, we're practically chiropractors.

A lot of what you might call 'avoiding recklessness' is demonstrably bad for some people so it's not clear that the current tradeoffs are optimal. And it's not at all obvious that, overall, regulation does much more than protect incumbents in a given field or industry at the expense of everyone else.

Based on my own experience, I've 'known' about regulations that governed the industries with which I've worked. I'm not sure what evidence specifically you or the author have that leads you to believe software developers should be embarrassed.

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