Category: Privacy

It seems there are only two ways to sell GDPR products and services:

  1. Tell everyone they are going to get fined €20M or 4% of their annual revenue; and
  2. Tell everyone that they only have until May 25th to get compliant or they’re in big trouble

These are both utter nonsense.

Continue reading “GDPR: May 25th is NOT a Deadline!” →

From my current perspective, these are the 3 most significant unknowns in the implementation of GDPR:

  1. The appropriateness of Privacy Shield (i.e. it’s not);
  2. What will ‘Representation’ look like (per Article 27); and
  3. What will ‘Certification’ look like (under Articles 42 & 43)
Continue reading “What Will GDPR ‘Certification’ Look Like?” →

Once again, I will begin this blog with the caveat that I am NOT a privacy expert. However, even a single reading, some brief research, and little common sense makes it clear that Privacy Shield is more about keeping US-EU business moving than it is protecting the rights of data subjects. At least from the US side.

And I’m perfectly fine with that, because to a significant degree the GDPR is predicated on enabling business across the globe. However, the challenge is that this simply cannot be at the continued expense of a fundamental human right.

Continue reading “Privacy Shield Does NOT Equal GDPR Compliance” →

It is with some chagrin that I write this post. I fell for the very thing that I have warned my clients about for decades; “Read [regulation name] carefully and NEVER make assumptions, and if you don’t know something, ask someone who does!” Here I am now having to admit that I thought the GDPR was only about EU citizens.

It’s not.

The WORD ‘citizen’ never even appears in the Regulation. Not once. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that it’s not even about EU residents, because that word never appears in the Regulation either. Neither of these words is what GDPR means by “in the Union“.

I take some very limited solace from the fact that I have never claimed to be a privacy expert, but my ongoing mission of pushing everyone to actually read the GDPR carefully makes me something of a hypocrite. So apologies for that, I should have known better.

But even now that I have read the relevant Recitals and Articles, and asked real experts for guidance, I am still only able to make assumptions. I know that somewhere, someone(s) knows exactly what all of this means in practice (and precedent) as there is very little ‘arbitrary’ about the law. Hopefully these someone(s) jump in at the supervisory authority level.

So the real point of this blog is NOT to impart knowledge, or instruct, I am unqualified to do so. It is to gather feedback, or even opinion on the below interpretation(s). And yes, I have reached out to both the ICO and Art. 29 WP for clarity, but I doubt I’ll get much back anytime soon.

[Note: I won’t name the people who have provided the following guidance (unless they want me to), but I thank them for it. That said, if I’m still way off the mark the blame is entirely my own.]

First, the KNOWN Facts:

  1. Nowhere in the GDPR, or any referenced document [of which I am aware], are the phrases ‘data subject’ and ‘natural person’ tied to ‘EU citizenship’ or even ‘EU residency’;
    o
  2. Recital 2 states – “The principles of, and rules on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of their personal data should, whatever their nationality or residence, respect their fundamental rights and freedoms, in particular their right to the protection of personal data. […]” – [this is, after all, a human right];
    o
  3. Recital 14 states – “The protection afforded by this Regulation should apply to natural persons, whatever their nationality or place of residence, in relation to the processing of their personal data. […]” – [it does not matter who or where they are];
    o
  4. Recital 22 states; – “Any processing of personal data in the context of the activities of an establishment of a controller or a processor in the Union should be carried out in accordance with this Regulation, regardless of whether the processing itself takes place within the Union.” – [a business established in the Union can [with caveats] process the data anywhere in the world, GDPR still applies];
    o
  5. The phrase – “[…] in the Union […]” appears frequently in relation to scope and/or applicability – [i.e. regardless of nationality and location];
    o
  6. Article 3(1) states – “This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data in the context of the activities of an establishment of a controller or a processor in the Union, regardless of whether the processing takes place in the Union or not.” – [regardless of 4. above, GDPR still applies]; and
    o
  7. Article 3(2) states – “This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union, where the processing activities are related to […]” – [applies to non-EU establishments if they ‘target’ people in the Union]

Now, the Assumed ‘Facts’:

  1. If your personal data is collected and processed while you are physically IN the Union, and Article 3(1) or 3(2) apply, it does not matter what your nationality is, nor does it matter where you live normally. GDPR applies.;
    o
    Scenario: A US citizen is on holiday in the UK and orders something from an e-commerce merchant ‘established’ in the Union. The site collects personal information. GDPR applies.
    o
  2. For processing of personal data outside of Article 3(1) and 3(2), it doesn’t matter whether you’re an EU citizen or not, GDPR does NOT [necessarily] apply;
    o
    Scenario: Someone ‘in the Union’ orders online from a merchant based in the US, who has made no effort whatsoever to market/aim their services to anyone outside of the US. All payments must be in USD. Just because they agree to ship the merchandise to the EU does not, by itself, put the merchant ‘in-scope’ for GDPR, even if they do collect personal data.
    o
  3. Even if you are not ‘in the Union’, the processing of your personal data by an establishment whose activities provide the context for the processing are in the Union, is in scope for the GDPR;
    o
    Scenario: A citizen, including non-EU, is on holiday in the US and orders online from an e-commerce merchant ‘established’ in the Union. GDPR applies.

In the end it’s becoming clear that being an EU citizen does not give you rights anywhere outside of the boundaries of Union law. It is also clear that regardless of your nationality, or where you live, doing business with Union-based organisations may give you rights that it’s quite possible you are not receiving in your own country (especially in the US).

And not that I’m particularly bright, but for me to make such a fundamental mistake in interpretation further supports my contention that you should only ever take guidance from proven privacy experts. This is just too important to rely on people who have only recently jumped on the bandwagon.

Again, I am not saying that any of my assumptions/interpretations are facts. I actually expect to be corrected. About the only benefit you can get from this is you should now have your own questions to ask.

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You’ve all heard of the Cookie Law, right?

If the answer is no, and your business has a website that uses cookies (or other ‘online identifiers’), I would suggest you do a little homework. The upcoming EU ePrivacy Regulation not only expands significantly on that law (which is actually a Directive), it includes a fine structure on par with the GDPR.

The Cookie Law is actually the EU ePrivacy Directive  and was responsible for the incredibly irritating banners that pop-up on almost every website in the EU. About the only good news for some organisations is that the banners will likely go away under the new Regulation.

Even for those who are aware of the ePrivacy Regulation (perhaps have even read it), there is still a great deal of confusion. Not just related to the contents of it, but as to whether or not it’s even relevant with the GDPR already covering ‘privacy issues’.

Just 15 minutes of research reveals the following:

  1. The ePrivacy Regulation “particularises and complements” the GDPR – In other words, ePrivacy is an expansion on a single aspect of the GDPR. In this case ‘electronic communications’ (e.g. the ‘online identifiers’ referred to in Recital 30);
    o
  2. ePrivacy covers Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (“the Charter”), the GDPR covers Article 8;
    o
  3. It’s not just about cookies, it covers EVERY aspect of electronic communication. Including; “…calls, internet access, instant messaging applications, e-mail, internet phone calls and personal messaging provided through social media.“, and all ‘metadata’ relevant to the communication channels themselves;
    o
  4. Unlike the GDPR, it does not just apply to ‘natural persons’, but to ‘legal persons’ as well. i.e. business-to-business; and
    o
  5. It has the most significant impacts in the area of marketing.

So, if your business has a website, performs marketing, or communicates with clients over ‘electronic channels’, you are in scope.

So why isn’t there anywhere near the kind of panic and hype over this Regulation as there is GDPR? If anything, I’d say this one has greater impact on most business, with a far greater degree of negative impact on how you are currently conducting your business. Just ask an online publisher what they think of it and brace yourself for the answer.

Imagine, for example, you provide online content free of charge. Your revenue is driven by online advertising which is in turn personalised to the viewer by cookies. Under ePrivacy you could no longer rely on pop-up banners to force acceptance of cookies, instead you have to rely on the viewer accepting cookies by default in THEIR web browser. Not only that, the Regulation is basically suggesting that all browsers should be ‘blocking all cookies by default’, then, in plain language, walk every citizen through changing the defaults to more ‘merchant-friendly’ settings.

However, here are a few bloody BRILLIANT outcomes:

  1. Unsolicited marketing phone calls should use a prefix on their numbers so you know what it is before answering! And no, they cannot get around this by blocking the caller ID;
    o
  2. Inclusion of your personal data in ‘publicly available directories‘ (a.k.a. marketing lists) must be done with consent; and
    o
  3. Any kind of “listening, tapping, storing, monitoring, scanning or other kinds of interception, surveillance or processing” of your personal data is strictly forbidden (the usual deprecations apply, e.g. ‘pubic interest’)

Not surprising that during the ‘Stakeholder Consultation’ conducted from 12 April to 5 July 2016 that 83.4% of citizens were for it, but 63.4% of businesses were against it. The lobbying that has taken place to soften the wording, while fruitless so far, has had the likely impact of delaying the enforcement of the regulation beyond the proposed data of 25 May, 2018 (yep, same date as GDPR, that’s how closely they are linked).

So I frankly have no idea why GDPR is such a big deal and ePrivacy is so obscure, but you just know it’s because only one of these is easily monetised by snake-oil merchants. GDPR attracted cybersecurity “professionals” because it’s about ‘data protection’, and lawyers because of the ‘lawful bases for processing’ and the requirement for DPO.

ePrivacy on the other hand provides no easy remedies, but you know they’re coming.

The bottom line here is that if you’re not familiar with it, get familiar, it WILL impact you. Once again, for those in the UK the ICO has lots of material on its website, but look for Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)¹ instead. Like how the DPA is the UK’s implementation of GDPR, PECR is ePrivacy.

Happy reading.

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¹ (Hopefully the acronym will be pronounced/known as the ‘Pecker Law’ which should give our American friends a good laugh).