GDPR, or the General Data Protection Regulation. What is GDPR? Well, it’s something you should definitely know about it. Here’s a simple guide to help you learn more. You probably don’t pay much attention to legislation going on in Europe; after all, many people don’t even pay attention to legislation in the US.
What is GDPR?
At its most basic level, GDPR gives consumers more control over their personal information that’s collected by companies. Not only does this affect people in the EU, it also affects companies that offer goods or services to people in Europe. This includes big tech companies like Google and Facebook.
What are the key takeaways from GDPR?
One of the big GDPR policies is the strengthening of conditions of consent. In other words, companies cannot use any vague or misleading statements to get you to agree to give your data away. Companies must also make it easy for you to stop giving consent for data, even if you previously said it’s okay.
Another part of the GDPR is that parents must grant opt-in permissions for data collection for children under the age of 16. The legislation also makes it mandatory for companies to give notifications about data breaches within 72 hours of realizing it.
With the GDPR, you’ll be able to access what personal information a company is storing, and what they will do with it. You can also ask for the data to be eliminated or you can take your data and transfer it elsewhere.
How does this affect companies?
Companies that handle massive amounts of data have a big job ahead of them. Facebook, for instance, has said that it is releasing new tools for privacy, which helps it comply with the GDPR rules. Other companies are following suit, and it’s quite likely that this legislation will have an impact on many.
For instance, some are speculating that the average monthly users for sites like Facebook could fall. Revenue might see less of an impact. However, companies still have some concerns about how the new legislation might affect them.