WIRED: The Next Cold War Is Here, and It's All About Data

March 29, 2018

      GDPR diventerà uno standard globale?

<https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-new-data-cold-war>

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Combatants in the new Cold War are fighting over the currency of the
modern age: personal information. The battles are over who controls
data. Vying against each other are those societies that believe that
individuals have an absolute right to control their personal data—to
exercise the same kind of dominion over data that they do over their
bodies or their personal property—and those that believe that personal
data is a good to be traded on the open market and thus subject to the
same market forces at play elsewhere. May the most innovative, efficient
company win.

The EU stands firmly for the interests of the individual. The regulatory
language of the GDPR cogently expresses its view, harmonizing data
protection rules throughout the EU and requiring that any company,
anywhere, must respect the data rights of EU citizens, or face stiff
penalties. Europeans must provide positive consent for the ways their
data is used, and they have the right to access and erase that data, as
well as the “right to be forgotten.” In the opposite corner sits the
United States and the giant US corporations that trade in personal data
for profit, and whose practices have expanded largely unchecked. One
ideology puts the control of personal data in the hands of the
individual, the other cedes that control to the corporation. (A third
approach is state control of data, which is emerging as China’s social
credit system, though that remains as yet an internal policy.) But these
differing views about data protection cannot jostle for dominance for
much longer. As trade grows increasingly global, it’s becoming clear
that personal data crosses borders far too easily for contrasting models
to co-exist.

Now, weeks before the GDPR goes into effect, the evidence is mounting
that the EU’s approach will dominate. One good measure of this dominance
is the speed with which countries around the world are recognizing the
supremacy of the EU data protection standard by adopting models that
align closely with the GDPR. The number of countries that have attained
official EU recognition of the “adequacy” of their standards grow
steadily; South Korea and Japan will join the list soon. For their part,
EU leaders are clear in their intent. “We want to set the global
standard,” Věra Jourová, the European commissioner for justice, told
POLITICO last year. “Privacy is a high priority for us.” And so it must
also be for those who wish to trade with this powerful economic bloc.

Even in the United States, there are signs of movement toward embracing
higher standards for data protection. The United States offers a
program, called Privacy Shield, that enables American companies to
certify that their data protection practices meet EU standards (though
this program is questioned by privacy purists in the EU). And some of
the most trusted US corporations go to great lengths to respect the data
rights of people in other countries (see the recent Microsoft case
before the Supreme Court). Likewise, individual states establish
GDPR-like laws for their citizens (see New York’s recent cybersecurity
regulation). The sheer volume of companies that are willingly modifying
their data protection practices, at great cost, to become “GDPR
compliant” should be evidence enough that there is appetite in the US
business community for the certainty of a unified data protection regime.

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Alberto Cammozzo

Diego Giorio

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