EU Regulators

Not a direct adversary but an important player with a possible conflict of interest.

Motivation

Financial gain. Regulators that are to oversee the data industry are working for governments who depend on mass-scale ad-tech based surveillance to make law enforcements and government spying cost-effective, and on taxing this new, and very rich, industry.

Past patterns

In the European Union and the EFTA member countries most Data Protection Authorities (DPA’s) were created following the implementation of EU Directive 95/46/EC and primarily deal in specific cases on the basis of inquiries from public authorities or private individuals or cases taken up by the agency on its own initiative.

The old EU Data Protection Directive of 1995 was outdated. It failed to cover for example, social networking sites, cloud computing, location-based services, smart cards and biometric data.

Current

In 2012 the European Commission proposed a comprehensive reform of the EU’s data protection rules to strengthen privacy rights and boost Europe’s digital economy. Unlike directives, the new GDPR that came into force in 2018 does not require national governments to pass any enabling legislation. It is directly binding and applicable.

Impact

From the perspective of users, the GDPR can also be seen as an arrogation, a law tool for the normalisation of appropriation of their data.

Resources