Happy GDPR Day!
I have been looking for some clever expansions of the acronym, but, well, this stuff is pretty dry and any effort to inject some levity into the day is probably misguided. Our friends at Wikipedia are good at this sort of thing, so before we make a mess of this introductory paragraph, just hyperlink your way over to their impressive GDPR page.
The long and short is that Europe is taking the lead, the first baby steps really, in implementing policies that begin to recognize that these digital traces we are leaving with every touch to a device, network, site, platform, browser, camera, robot dog, etc. etc., are undeniably personal and unfathomably revealing when taken in aggregate. GDPR sets out to give EU citizens more rights related to the access to and control of this data. This is a very good thing on the surface, but also creates a serious liability for the small and medium sized technology companies like Meedan.
A year ago we recognized this impending day and so reached out to some lawyer friends who concern themselves with the policies and procedures relevant to offering software services to a global users and ask them what it would take Meedan to prepare for GDPR. Kendra Albert is a brilliant legal mind and was kind enough to offer an initial consultation. The universe then was kind enough to cause Kendra to shortly thereafter relocate to the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic where they lobbied for a pro-bono engagement with Meedan. Luck is good. So is the team of students and faculty at the Cyberlaw Clinic. Huge huge thanks to Kendra and their faculty and student colleagues at Cyberlaw Clinic — Devony Schmidt, Vivek Krishnamurthy, Anderson Grossman, Sarah Recktenwald, and Camila Connolly.
So, without further ado, please bookmark our new TOS, Privacy Policy, and Community Guidelines for your weekend reading…ok, you are not going to do that, but please do join us in celebrating the beginning of what is sure to be a long and winding road to develop tools, norms, and policies to support personal data rights on the web, and join us in thanking the incredible team of students and faculty at the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic.
