EU proposes right to be forgotten by internet firms

[Clinton]

I'm no fan of the EU but, by golly, we certainly have better privacy protection in the UK than our friends do across the Atlantic.


Privacy is a major concern of mine and the speed with which humanity is giving up privacy to greedy corporates in exchange for very little (in some cases nothing at all) doesn't bode well for our long term future. My view anyway.

There's been talk of a Right To Be Forgotten before. It sometimes gets forgotten But the EU is proposing a new law tomorrow.

It says people will be able to ask for data about them to be deleted and firms will have to comply unless there are "legitimate" grounds to retain it.

The move is part of a wide-ranging overhaul of the commission's 1995 Data Protection Directive.....Other measures in the bill include an obligation on all firms to notify users and the authorities about data lost through hacking attacks or other breaches "as soon as possible"....

The commissioner said that firms would have to explicitly seek people's permission to use data about them and could not proceed on the basis of "assumed" consent in situations where approval was required. (Google, you listening?!! - Clinton)....

If approved the law would create a pan-EU set of data privacy rules for the first time. These would also apply to overseas companies active in the 27-member bloc, even if they handled the data on servers based in other parts of the world.

I think we have far too many laws, but I don't mind this new one. What do you think? A step too far? I mean, if Microsoft and Google don't like this new law ... it's gotta be a good thing surely?

[grynge]

Damn I would love that here in Australia, one of my biggest pet hates is the ability of firms to keep a financial record of me. I believe we should have an OPT in/out system, if I don't want to have a credit record then I should be allowed to not have a credit record.

[golles]

yes - i am with you clinton. i like this.

i am a private sort of person and really don't like the thought of too much private information being 'out there' - of course 'private information' means different things to different people. maybe it's my age - but the thought of sharing my personal life on facebook etc is just on another parallel for me - (im a little contradictory here as I do use facebook for business purposes) - it scares me.

i realise many companies have much more information on us than we will ever know, but I was just looking through my password manager the other day and realising how in the course of doing my work, over the last few years, how many companies hold what I call 'private' information on me - signing up for this account, that web service, this tool etc. the information becomes scary in volume and scary in geographical nature etc. It would be good to be able to do a 'purge' of old unused accounts etc utilising a privacy directive like this one.

[KenW3]

Yesterday G announced changes to its privacy practices. The Huffington Post is reporting that Google will track online activities across products and users will not be able to opt out.

The new privacy policies go into effect on March 1. Users have no choice but to accept the changes, except, of course, to stop using Google's services.