EU secures its data users by applying ‘General Data Protection Regulation’

NewsBharati    25-May-2018
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Brussels, May 25: The European Union's new data protection law comes into effect from today. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gives EU citizens more rights over how their personal information is used.

Companies working in the EU or any association or club must now get express consent to collect personal information or face hefty fines. Misusing or carelessly handling personal information will bring heavy fines of up to 4 percent of their annual revenue or 20 million euros or about 23 million dollars, whichever is higher. 

Thirty-one countries, including non-EU members Norway and Iceland, are now enforcing the General Data Protection Regulation.

 

EU Justice Commissioner, Vera Jourova said the new rules are setting a global standard of privacy.

French President Emmanuel Macron termed the new law as a very important step forward.

 

The case for the new rules has been boosted by the recent scandal over the harvesting of Facebook users' data by Cambridge Analytica, a US-British political research firm, for the 2016 US presidential election.

The General Data Protection Regulation is a new, EU-wide law that gives greater power to regulators to penalize companies who mishandle personal data or are not transparent about how their business uses it.

For consumers, it brings new powers that require firms to obtain clear consent from users before processing their data, as well as grants users a right to easily access the data collected from them and transparency on how it is being used.