GDPR, Right to Privacy & Safein
25 May 2018 is going to be controversial. On one hand, it’s known as the date when EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) comes into effect, bringing huge fines for improper personal data collection and storage as well as due anxiety to more diligent online merchants. On the other hand, this date also demonstrates increasing governmental focus on problems related to online privacy and data protection as well as signalizes regulatory desire to limit the extent of unwanted data mining, profiling and storage of our personal information.
To be precise, this trend to strictly regulate the use of personal data is not characteristic to EU only as all governments worldwide scramble to react to the growing concerns of the public where huge data thefts in cyber-attacks are ever more common and 76 per cent of respondents claim that information requested of them during online registrations is intrusive and unnecessary.
Two main reasons could be attributed to this demand for action. First, the right to privacy is a basic human right recognized by Universal Declaration of Human Rights and numerous other legal acts. Accordingly, we expect to see it protected as such not only offline, but in our cyber activity as well. Secondly, extensive data collection, profiling and flawed storage of personal data is not only unwelcomed by most — it can also bring real harm to the data provider. In particular, this harm can manifest itself in user’s discrimination, identity theft, fraud, financial loss, damage to reputation, loss of sensitive information or anonymity, etc.
Even though not uncommon, most of this harm is caused unwillingly by negligent trust in outdated technology, lack of legal oversight or budget constrains faced by many smaller online merchants. Safein is being built to address all these issues by: (i) educating the merchants on applicable legal acts; (ii) limiting the extent of unnecessary data collection by passing only the “need to know” information to merchants (keeping our users anonymous, where possible); (iii) investing significant resources in proper cyber security; and (iv) allowing our users to effectively control their personal data and exercise their rights to privacy (including the “right to be forgotten”).
In view of the above, we believe that Safein has the potential of not only growing trust, conversions and security associated with e-commerce, but also of helping the merchants in compliance with applicable regulations and significant cost reductions connected thereto.
