DailyPost 626
GDPR & BEYOND!
As we celebrate the onset of GDPR from 25th of May, 2018 and flurry of activity all around the globe by IT companies, one is sometime forced to believe, that finally the user will get back privacy. Data is his property, he has been illegally dispossessed, GDPR aspires to give the user legal possession back. Where the data resides in the cyber alleys of the enterprise & beyond, nobody knows. Nonetheless, lots to celebrate, with this epoch making law, somebody is willing to bell the cat.
The cats are there to play, notwithstanding the ignominy they faced in the ill famous Facebook – Cambridge Analytica saga. In a 225 page reply to the US Senate Committee, Facebook confirms that it even tracks how you to mouse on the computer screen. Even a organisation like Stasi couldn’t have even imagined a surveillance of this nature. Out it the open but world seems to have no answers. Data Security is a modern age myth. Misusing data, data broking & lots of such unethical business activities, they euphemistically call it as harnessing user data.
It gives a feeling of watching a horror movie; * “we collect information from and about the computers, phones, connected devices and other web-connected devices users use that integrate with products, and we combine this information across different devices users use.”* What audacity & this is done to better personalise the content; actually means positioning ads & finding out the exact response.
Facebook collects information about operating systems, hardware, software versions, battery levels, signal strength, available storage device, Bluetooth signals, file names and types, device Ids, browser & browser plug-ins, from users phones, TV and other connected devices. What is left? What is PII in its comparison.
Data octopus’s have taken over. Can data protection laws meet this challenge. It’s a challenge to every Govt. / citizen / user and to humanity itself.
CAN GDPR STEM THE ROT?
Sanjay Sahay