How GDPR Drives Real-Time Analytics
New reforms under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) started as an attempt to standardise data protection regulations in 2012. The European Union intends to make Europe “fit for the digital age.” It took four years to finalise the agreements and reach a roadmap on how the laws will be enforced.
The GDPR presents new opportunities as well as difficulties for businesses, digital companies, data collectors, and digital marketers. On the one hand, these regulations will make it more difficult for businesses and data mining firms to collect and analyse customer data for marketers, while on the other, they will present an opportunity for data collectors to innovate and enhance their techniques. This will lead to a better collection of more meaningful data, as customers will be directly involved.
The GDRP will go into effect on May 25, 2018. It will apply to all organisations and businesses that process personal and marketing data from European residents.
There are six underlying principles of GDPR.
The regulations apply to organisations that are trading within the EU. However, this potentially includes organisations from every part of the world. The regulations would keep European organisations from working with companies and states that do not meet the requirements of GDPR.
The regulation aims to protect the personal data of natural persons, whatever their nationality or place of residence. The regulations have the potential to apply to citizens and businesses from the U.S., Asia, and other parts of the world.
EU organisations are bound by the regulation to protect the personal data of anyone from anywhere in the world and not just the EU citizens. Data collectors from outside the EU are also bound to protect the personal data of European citizens as long as it is collected within the European borders.
The scope of the term personal data has been expanded in the new legislation. It now encompasses any information relating to an identified or natural person such as their name, location data, identification number, or employment, etc. Personal data also includes the physical, genetic, mental, physiological, economic, cultural, or social identity of that person.
The major implication of the GDRP is that it drastically increases the rights of subjects on their personal data held by organisations.
Data collectors must now clearly communicate to the subjects of their data gathering efforts about what data they are collecting and what purposes it will be used for.
The data collectors must also obtain consent from the data subjects for collecting most types of personal data. While consent is not strictly necessary, it can restrict the type of data that can be collected or used by organisations.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the new regulations is the right of data subjects to have their data removed from an organisation’s records.
