General Data Protection Regulation: all you need to know
Originally published by: Find your digital self | FySelf Blog
General Data Protection Regulation has become a new reality in the old continent. Europe is leading the way with respect to protection of personal data. In a world where the Big Data explosion has turned people’s information into currency, a regulatory framework is increasingly important to ensure that citizens enforce certain rights in the online world.
Who accesses your information? When do they do it and under what conditions? Do you, as a user, have any control over this? The large companies of Silicon Valley began to be plenipotentiaries regarding the use of people’s data. That has to change … and it is happening already.
In order to explain this Law, I will comment not only on the fundamental principles that it stipulates, but also on why FySelf complies with them.
What is the common ground between FySelf and the European Data Protection Regulation (RGPD)?
Principles of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
1. The Regulation establishes a series of rights to ensure the protection of your data
The RGPD empowers you as an interested party, providing you a series of rights that will serve you to demand about the use and management of your personal data.
In this way, it encourages technology companies to take actions where your expressed interests are respected along four fundamental axes.
These rights are:
Right to information
Covered by the Regulation, you can request and obtain understandable information about any type of employment or processing your data goes through. It is the duty of the companies processing your data, to give you full access to them, the categories of data that they will process, the sources from which they come, the purposes of the treatment that will be carried out, the personnel involved (both responsible and responsible for the treatment as recipients) as well as the expected period of conservation of your data.
Right to rectification
You can claim the rectification of your personal data that is reflected on any website inaccurately or incompletely. They must attend you requests without delay.
Right of withdrawal
Also called “right to be forgotten”, it allows you to claim a complete deletion of your information from the website in question.
Right of opposition
You are fully empowered to oppose the use of your personal information, whether for advertising or not.
FySelf will take care of your data because…
The FySelf platform will provide you with information in the form of contracts so that you are aware of everything that may happen with your information. It will do so in an understandable way, so that you receive enough information of the scope of your rights and powers of disposal on your own data.
On the other hand, each field will be editable, without losing any validity, so FySelf not only guarantees the right to rectification, it even leaves it in your own hands.
At all times, you can delete the content of a field or move it to the protected status where no one except you will be able to use it.
2. Everything revolves around your consent
A portal specialized in legal information in Spain states that consent in the area of data protection is “any manifestation of free, specific, informed and unequivocal will by which the interested party accepts, either by means of a declaration or a clear affirmative action, the processing of personal data concerning you “.
In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation, the person must consent to each use of their personal data, both by the company and by third parties through it.
How will FySelf work based on your consent?
On this platform, you will always be the owner of your information, you will follow it wherever it goes. You will be a participant even in further treatments that may arise.
One of the great differences from other technological platforms is the possibility of granting a specific privacy status to each information fields that the platform contains about you.
Backed by a user-signed contract, the three statuses are:
- Public (everyone can see that piece of information, and with your consent it will be processed without using your identifying data (identifiers), although with additional information contained in computer codes, a link can be established between your data and you, as owner of them. For more information about the pseudonymization and anonymization of data you can visit this site.
- Private: only you will have access to this data, and it can be processed only after it is impossible to associate that data with your identifying data (identifiers), that is, by separating the information from your identity.
- Protected (no one, not even FySelf, has the power to use that data, not even for anonymous statistics)
3. Any request for data to the user has to respond to a specific objective
Requesting information is an act of trust between the user and the company providing the service. But it has been common the fact that corporations abuse that trust by asking for more data than they really need to deliver what they promise.
Why would a blog where there are no paid subscriptions ask you for your credit card number? Or why would an audio editing app need access to your location?
European regulations stipulate that should be requested only the minimum amount of data required to achieve the task.
FySelf will take care of your data because…
Each information field that you fill in the platform will be voluntarily granted by you and in your own interest. To register, you will only have to provide an email or a phone number as an identifying value, and even that decision will be your choice. Outside of this identifying value, the rest of the fields will be completely optional.
In fact, if you become a fan of FySelf you will want to include much more information of your own free will. You will be aware of the monetary and practical benefits that will be proportional to the amount of data that you upload to FySelf.
4. Companies are obliged to secure the data they store from customers, implementing the necessary technical measures
Once uploaded to the platform, companies that somehow store user information are required by law to ensure their protection, applying all the technical measures available to them to prevent unauthorized access by third parties or security breaches.
How will FySelf secure your information?
It will guarantee reliable servers for its platform and will take all security precautions so that there is no access to your data beyond the conditions specified in the status of each field (Public, Private and Protected).
As a FySelf user, you will have the possibility to protect your information with passwords and other computer protection mechanisms. Among these mechanisms, those applicable to the “Protected” privacy status stand out: in certain circumstances you may encrypt your information with a private key.
Keep in mind that FySelf will only use the information that you provide, for your own benefit. For the first time on a social network, your information will be worth money and you will participate in those profits.
Now that you know the General Data Protection Regulation (RGPD) in force in Europe, do you think that your information is safe on all social networks? Tell us
