Comment on How French spies, police and military personnel are betrayed by advertising data
HailSeitan@lemmy.world 4 weeks agoIreland has entered the chat.
Comment on How French spies, police and military personnel are betrayed by advertising data
HailSeitan@lemmy.world 4 weeks agoIreland has entered the chat.
General_Effort@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It’s a myth that the GDPR is a useful tool in such cases. You know the expression “protected by copyright”? That’s how lawyers protect data.
The GDPR grants people rights over data concerning them, similar to how copyright grants rights over data. That means 2 things.
It’s rarely obvious that some data processing is illegal. It’s not obvious if it happens without consent. But even so, you often don’t need explicit consent to use someone’s data. EG when we write about French president Macron, then that is Macron’s data under the GDPR. Of course, you don’t need his consent to discuss or report on politics, and so you usually don’t need his consent to discuss his person.
Enforcement is difficult and expensive. Think about the problems the copyright industry has. Surveillance tools like Content ID can at least rely on knowing what exactly they are looking for. Besides, much of the world has similar laws supported by influential industries. Little chance to do that for GDPR.
Basically, using GDPR to protect actual secrets is like using copyright for the purpose.