EU Approves Strict New Privacy Rules

An anonymous reader writes: The EU just approved a new set of strict rules governing privacy and data protection, which include a right to be forgotten and to "clear and affirmative consent" for any processing of private data, as well as the right to know when data has been compromised. Culminating more than four years of work, "The reform will replace the current data protection directive, dating back to 1995 when the internet was still in its infancy," the EU said in a statement, "with a general regulation designed to give citizens more control over their own private information in a digitized world of smartphones, social media, internet banking and global transfers." If the rules are broken, the new EU privacy policy includes hefty fines of up to 4% of a firm's total worldwide annual turnover.

Comments

stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

The right to be forgotten is such BS.
I say this as a European.
Why does some murderer have the right to be forgotten?
Do we have to delete all records of their crime from the internet?
Completely retarded.
Things like this make me wish freenet wasn't just some hub for perverts to share CP, but was actually used by normal people to circumvent this shit.

Re:stupid

[buchner.johannes]

Why does some murderer have the right to be forgotten?

Murder cases make it on the internet because the press is reporting about it -- usually because someone has been accused.
If you had been accused of a outrageous crime and later found innocent, you will have your name associated with those news stories forever. Every time an employer googles you, they will get that impression, and you will spend the rest of your life arguing that charges were dismissed.
For those people I think a right to be forgotten is appropriate.

Right to be forgotten?

[Cytotoxic]

This notion that you have a right to be forgotten is beyond parody. The idea that I have to scrub my notes of all mention of your foibles defies logic. If you were convicted of arson in 2015, what on earth makes anyone think that other people are obligated to hide that fact? And how exactly does the passage of time magically imbue facts with liability? In 2020 it will still be relevant and OK to have in the newspaper, but in 2030 it is magically verboten?

I realize that this is motivated by politicians who don't want accounts of their youthful indiscretions publicly available, but the fact that there seems to be broad support for this law is kinda scary. Freedom of speech is a pretty basic and important right. Any law requiring censorship should be well beyond the boundary of public discourse, let alone actually being implemented as law.

I recognize that Europe has a different history with speech and censorship and citizens rights, but c'mon folks, can't we stand up for the right to speak the truth in public?

Re:Right to be forgotten?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hope you're not falsely accused of anything then. Rape, child molestation, murder, sexism, racism, the list goes on.

If any of these charges makes a headline, even it it's reported in a blog, it'll be one of the top results in google. Do you really think a potential employer is going to do some serious digging to find the actual truth once they see "abc drugged and raped xyz"? No way they'll move to the next just-as-qualified person.
Likewise if you're falsely accused of something to do with children, you move into a new neighborhood and one of the mothers googles your name and "xyz touched my child" comes up...you'll be fucking lynched. No ifs, buts or maybes.

Even if you DID commit a crime, PRISON is the punishment. Once you leave prison you have served your sentence and atoned for your sins.
Having that conviction follow you throughout your entire life simply by someone googling your name could ruin chances of employment, housing, friends, significant others and maybe lead to a further life of crime.

If public details of somebodies life are no longer relevant, eg time served, accusation repealed etc, then they shouldn't show up for the world to see, especially without context as i highly doubt many newspaper or blog articles are updated once the accused was found not guilty.

Exceptionalism backlash

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has been a bit longer at it, a bit blunter too. Don't worry, the EU have their own problems, ones they'll need to deal with or they'll cease to be a thing soonish. At the same time the US don't get to whine they're held to a double standard when that's what they've been doing for ages themselves, wholesale.

Examples? Oh please. Here, just one: The ICC. Prime United States "we don't play well with others" of America, "FUCK YEAH!" material right there.

Re:They don't...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Except, of course, that this is what it has been used for in the past

Which is quite understandable in some forms since people generally have a right to be rehabilitated.

Re:Priorities ?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are fucked up because we don't like the United States of Merkin kind forcing their laws and culture on us? Fix your own damn house and we will fix ours the way we want it to be.

If you don't like our laws then don't to business here but you can't because you are so fucking ideologically greedy in your worship of the almighty it hurts merkins to leave one in a pocket that isn't theirs!

Unbelievable comments.

[Computershack]

I can't believe how many people, mostly Americans, think its bad that there is a law out there forcing companies to tell you what they intend to do with your personal data and if they have a breach where that data is compromised. They also seem to have a poor grasp of the right to be forgotten rule as well. Its not intended to hide stuff that politicians or corporations have done in the past but is instead there to protect private individuals from having irrelevant shit they did when they were young and stupid which no longer needs to see the light of day from being able to be found and used against them. Its there to protect those who were falsely accused from having to undergo further misery in their lives. And fuck you if you're too stupid to see that.