Happy Birthday GDPR
The world is relying on you more and more
Data is all around us. It powers our social media, video streaming and shopping recommendations. It’s used by businesses the world over to manage and improve their operations
And as it becomes more synonymous with modern life, individuals are becoming more and more conscious of the dangers that this data can pose, particularly in terms of their privacy and how secure this data is
This is what inspired the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which turned 5 years old earlier this week
How often has GDPR been enforced?
Breaches can have disastrous consequences for businesses. Other than the negative PR that comes with mishandling data, fines can be as high as either €10 million or 2% of global revenue
Fines are becoming more common as more businesses are investigated for not following GDPR’s rules. In total, c. 1,700 fines worth €4 billion have been issued, with roughly 500 of these coming in the last 12 months
The largest of these have been for:
- Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram) recently received the largest ever GDPR fine (€1.2 billion) which was issued last week for transferring data to the US without sufficiently complying with EU regulation
- However, they have had multiple other fines over the last few years. This includes three large fines in Jan 2023 (€390 million), Nov 2022 (€265 million) and Sep 2022 (€405 million). One of these were for a case brought by Facebook users who were forced to consent to sharing data to use the site
- Amazon previously had the largest fine after they were ordered to pay €746 million in July 2021 for targeting ads without prior consent
- Google has also had three large fines between 2019–21 ranging from €50 million - €90 million
How much data is there in the world?
To understand how necessary GDPR has become, first we should look at how much data is produced
Short answer…lots!
In 2022, 97 zettabytes (ZB) of data was produced across the world, or 265 million terabytes (TB) per day
I appreciate this probably doesn’t mean a lot. So to put this in context, this is equivalent to a third of the world’s population all downloading a 10 gigabyte (GB) PC Game (a GB is 1/1000th of a TB) in the same day
Every year, the amount of data produced around the world increases exponentially. 79ZB were produced in 2021 (up 23%), while only 33ZB were produced in 2018 when GDPR came into force (up almost 3x in five years)
While the internet and iPhones all existed in 2010, only 2ZB of data was produced in that year (back in 1970, people had only started using megabytes of data, while the idea of a zettabyte was unheard of)
Where is this data stored?
The vast majority of data isn’t stored on your personal computer or mobile. Instead they’re stored on the cloud
But what is this cloud? Is it Cirrus or Stratus?
No, its a network of servers (known as data centres) which store most of the world’s data remotely
In total, there are over 8,000 data centres in the world. Most of these are found in the United States which have 5x more than any other country (2701 by the most recent counting), followed by Germany (487), the UK (456) and China (443)
While China doesn’t have as many data centres as the US, it still has the biggest. An average data centre is c. 100,000 square foot (sq ft) in size, approximately the size of two American Football fields next to each other. However, the largest are much bigger:
- China Telecom in Hohhot, China, at 10.7 million sq ft
- China Mobile, also in Hohhot, China, at 7 million sq ft
- Switch — The Citadel Mobile in Nevada, US, at 7.2 million sq ft
- Cardiff (CWL1) Data Centre Campus, UK, at 2 million sq ft
And these data centres require a lot of power, particularly on cooling so their servers so they don’t overheat. They currently only make up 1% of global energy demand (which is quite a lot), but this is predicted to increase to 20% of the world’s demand by 2025 due to continued exponential growth in the sector
Most people assume that the well known tech giants (Amazon with AWS, Microsoft with Azure, etc.) dominate this market. However, while they do play an important role here, they definitely don’t dominate
Firms in China have more data centres than any other. For example, China Telecom has 456 centres in more than 10 countries, while China Unicom has 550, although these are almost entirely in China and Hong Kong
Digital Reality and Equinix, both based in California, are amongst the western firms with the most centres (214 in 14 countries, and 202 in 24 countries, respectively). Amazon Web Services, in comparison, has 116 data centres
Why is all this data being produced?
To put it simply, its because of everything we do on the internet, although there are certainly some forms of media that are more data intensive than others:
- Video, and in particular streaming, makes up 54% of all internet data traffic. A lot of this comes from YouTube with one 4k video requiring 16GB per hour (30x more than a 480p resolution video). An ultra high definition Netflix video requires 9GB per hour
- This includes video embedded in social media sites, such as TikTok and Snapchat. All other data coming through these apps, though, makes up the second biggest category (13%)
- You then have Gaming at 10% and Messaging at 5%
- Audio, by comparison, is a tiny proportion of total data traffic at only 0.3%. For example, a typical 3 minute song on Spotify is only 2MB, or 40MB per hour. That’s 400x smaller than a 4k music video on YouTube of the same song
Other notable mentioned includes Web Browsing (6%), File Sharing (5%) and Online Marketplaces (4%)
To put some of this into context, here is a summary of what happens every minute on the internet (as of April 2022):
- 231.4 million emails are sent
- 90 million units of Crypto are purchased
- 5.9 million Google searches are made
- 2.4 million snaps are shared on Snapchat
- 1.7 million pieces of content are shared on Facebook
- 1.1 million swipes are made on Tinder (left and right)
Check out more GoodStats on Technology:
- It comes crashing down; The cryptic story of cryptocurrencies
- You’re in for a Tweet; In 280 characters or less
- Taking a ride down Electric Avenue; The move to Electric Vehicles have put pressure on EV infrastructure
