The European Parliament and individual member governments still must pass the new proposals so it not certain that this is a done deal. After all of the approvals have been obtained, the law may become effective within two years.
In general, I am in favor of strong industry self-regulation. Unfortunately, this has not worked as hoped in the digital space. Some companies are collecting massive amounts of personal information about their users and then utilizing the data for opaque secondary uses (i.e. selling the content to data brokers, psychological experiments, etc...). Because of these non-transparent abuses, EU lawmakers felt it was time to act to reign in these practices.
Some positive aspects of these reforms provide users the right to know why they are being profiled, how they are being labeled, who is using their personal data, etc... This type of transparency will lead to greater accountability and hopefully lead to some companies changing their troubling privacy policies and data usage practices. While it may be wishful thinking, I am optimistic that these new laws will convince U.S. law makers and regulators to push for some of these much needed reforms because there is little transparency in the data collection and usage industry.
This latest push for stronger EU privacy laws coincides with the negotiation for an updated Safe Harbor data transfer agreement which may soon replace the previous one that was invalidated earlier this year. In our digital dependent economy, participants need to be able to transfer data between continents in a timely fashion. Therefore, I am cautiously optimistic that an updated Safe Harbor Agreement will be finalized early in the new year because in our interconnected world it is imperative for businesses to have legal certainty.
Copyright 2015 by The Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment