I had the opportunity to interview Mark Singer and Raf Sanchez, both at Beazley, about the issue of profiling and the GDPR. Mark Singer is a member of the Cyber & Executive Risk Group at Beazley. Mark handles insurance coverage issues arising out of cybersecurity, technology errors and omissions, data privacy, intellectual property, media and advertising liabilities. Raf Sanchez leads the international Beazley Breach Response Services team at Beazley and is responsible for incident response in all territories outside the US and Canada.
This cartoon is about the GDPR’s right to data portability under Article 20. This right allows data subjects to take their data from one organization and transfer it easily to other organizations. Pursuant to the GDPR Article 20:
1. The data subject shall have the right to receive the personal data concerning him or her, which he or she has provided to a controller, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to another controller without hindrance from the controller to which the personal data have been provided, where:
(a) the processing is based on consent pursuant to point (a) of Article 6(1) or point (a) of Article 9(2) or on a contract pursuant to point (b) of Article 6(1); and
(b) the processing is carried out by automated means.
2. In exercising his or her right to data portability pursuant to paragraph 1, the data subject shall have the right to have the personal data transmitted directly from one controller to another, where technically feasible.
3. The exercise of the right referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall be without prejudice to Article 17. That right shall not apply to processing necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.
4. The right referred to in paragraph 1 shall not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.
For global organizations as well as organizations in the EU, the GDPR has brought significant attention and resources to privacy. Finally, many executives are beginning to take privacy seriously. As I recently wrote in my article, Prime Time for Privacy, at Bloomberg Law:
The GDPR has taken privacy to the next level. Before the GDPR, nothing had fully gelled around what protecting privacy actually entailed. The consequences of poor privacy were also rather vague in many cases. There was no clear blueprint for protecting privacy. Organizations would do just one or two things, such as provide a notice of privacy practices and keep data secure, and then claim they were protecting privacy. But they were only doing a fraction of what was truly needed to protect privacy.
The GDPR has changed all that. It provides a blueprint for protecting data that is more thorough and complete than nearly any other privacy law. The GDPR contains provisions that require governance measures, data mapping, assessment, data protection by design, and vendor management, among other things. It provides for individual rights such as the right to access one’s data, the right to request restrictions on data use, the right to be forgotten, and the right to data portability. The GDPR has a broad definition of personal data, and it applies across different industries, so it provides a comprehensive baseline of privacy protection.
Now, privacy professionals can point to a definitive source of the various norms, best practices, standards, and rules that have long existed in fragmentary form. The GDPR has penalties that will keep the CEO awake at night. Privacy professionals can point to it and say, “This is what we need to do, and this is why.”
In the past few weeks, with enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) beginning on May 25, countless organizations launched emails and pop up notices about changes in their privacy notices in light of GDPR. This cartoon pokes a little fun at the blizzard of changed privacy notice notices.
This is a momentous week. On Friday, May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will begin being enforced. Organizations are racing against the clock to be prepared. What will the day look like when the sun rises on May 25?
