We are moving into a world where every thing we do will leave a data history behind. To take a single example of a single act of buying a milk at the store: The

We are moving into a world where every thing we do will leave a data history behind. To take a single example of a single act of buying a milk at the store: The store want a record in order to manage inventory, sale history and sale predictions. They also want location path data in order to determine effectiveness of product placements. Your bank want a record in order to facilitating money exchange and manage money laundering laws. The recipient bank want a record too to do the same for the store owner, but also to keep track of the market which the store is under. The government want a record in order to know how much money has changed hand and for what product in order to determine taxes for the seller and buyer. The mall want a record for the location of the store you bought the milk and how you traversed the mall to reach it in order to evaluate property values and advertise placements. Other milk producers and milk alternatives want a record in order to make a better case arguing for their competing product. The secret police want a secret record in order to verify that you did not buy something that could be made into a threat. The regular police want a copy of the record and a video record in case a crime happened while buying the milk. The local government want a location record in order to manage traffic of people who travel around in order to buy milk. The health department want a record to help researcher determine the potential benefit of milk drinkers. GDPR is really just a small stop gap to manage a fraction of all the records we leave behind. It is unlikely to be the last one trying to create the laws needed to handle the fact that everyone a record of everything everyone does, but that we also likely going to end up where everyone has a record of everything everyone does because it saves money, makes strategies more efficient and reduces the need for manual labor. Unrestricted data records has a history full of recorded abuse, and a lot of current use today is explicitly designed to harm people by manipulation and predatory strategies. GDPR is a small step forward, but it is mostly just testing the water for the real legal work needed to make the behavior of all those data collectors safe enough that a person can do something as simple as buying milk at the store without exposing themselves to harm.