DailyPost 847
IS PRIVACY A NON-STARTER?
Privacy has been in global news for all the bad reasons for quite some time now, Edward Snowden’s revelation of 2013 and the Cambridge Analytica – Facebook saga of 2018 being the legendary milestones. While what ails the IT gaints are all too well known to the world but for the IT giants themselves. The money colored glasses have made their vision opaque and they can’t see the world in a transparent manner. GDPR with a two year twilight period was a great effort on the legal and positive dimension of privacy. General Data Protection Regulations, GDPR, came into vogue on 25th of May, 2018, what has changed since then?
The media, the fourth estate, the final savior of our rights, based on information dissemination, today fights for it’s own credibility and survival. The war cry of the battle for privacy would be heard all around. The comfortable reading spaces of print and social media and cozy watching of electronic media has not taken the cause any further. Who understands the whole issue and who is supposed to act and who is ready to act is the whole issue? The law is in place and so it’s mechanism, the companies declared have declared their compliance. One the ground is the most exploitative operation of the sovereigns of democracies – the citizens – of their data is underway.
Management processes were created to streamline work, make it measurable and accountable and declare it’s satisfactory completion at the end of the workflow. Not any more. Work remains unattended and the process is completed. Ironical Management. “No service is fully complied,” is the present status. Max Schrems renowned data privacy activist tested them by requesting private data the companies hold about the user. Automated systems created to respond to requests don’t even remotely provide data user has right to. Systems are actually built to withhold the relevant information.
Social networks have to regain Europeans’ consent every single time their data has to used in new way. It might be research, supposedly better user experience or real hidden urge to advertising. Based on fact checks non-profit organization NOYB named eight tech firms including Apple and Amazon in a complaint filed in Austria for their failure to comply with European Union’s GDPR.
DIGITAL WORLD HAS STILL TO DISCOVER IT’S RULE OF LAW.
Sanjay Sahay