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In fact, GDPR is only 3 years old. Let’s put timeline of the past 10 years. Has privacy increased or decreased?

by nicce 5y ago

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
increased. A lot! (not thanks to US tech companies of course, but the laws in EU are trying to fix their excessive power and overreach) My (ex) girlfriend worked as a technical consultant on this law. I also usually agree with the Pirate Party and many critiques to some EU proposals are my critiques. I also voted for them in my country, I personally knew some of the candidates, we've been friends for a long time In my country we specifically focused on the right to distribute copyrighted material (via torrent or other technologies) that was of importance for the public. Like for example old movies or documentaries or film screenings in public open spaces, especially in smaller towns where there are no theatres. Or material in possession of public broadcast networks that was paid by the taxpayers. The national Television of my country produced something like hundreds of live recordings of bands that came here, but most of them never saw the light of day. In their archives there is, for example, a two hours Sonic Youth live, from 1989, recorded at the TV studios that actually was a full fledged concert hall for classical music. How cool is that? It never aired. But if you distribute it or show it to someone, technically you're breaking the law, even though citizen paid for it with their taxes. Unfortunately we elected zero representatives. Nevertheless how this vote is being presented is hyperbolic, to say the least, and doesn't reflect the work being done. The law presented has as a primary objectives making the tech giants responsible while protecting the EU people from their abuses. They are prohibited to spy on you, unless they have been authorized by the law. That's the spirit. Without legislation, in Europe what's not prohibited is permitted and people would be at the mercy of what corporations want to do with their data.
- still_grokking 5y ago
  > They are prohibited to spy on you, unless they have been authorized by the law. > That's the spirit. Don't turn things upside down! The spirit is that they are now REQUIRED to spy on all their customers. Before that they where not allowed to do it any more as there were no exceptions to the new e-privacy laws. So the companies stopped spying on people as it became illegal. That caused mayor panic in the EU government as they couldn't use those company's data for mass surveillance any more (law enforcement has access to that data; by now even secretly without court warrants! Before that they had "general warrants" for secret services, "national security" interests, and such). First thing the EU did was giving the companies an "emergency allowance" to do mass surveillance again. This law now turn that "emergency allowance" into proper rules, which not only allow mass surveillance, but make it mandatory. The story (like I told) up until the current point can be read here (frankly in German, by the biggest IT online-media there): https://www.heise.de/news/EU-Parlament-erlaubt-flaechendeckende-Scans-nach-Kinderpornografie-6130267.html https://www.heise.de/news/EU-Parlament-erlaubt-flaechendecke... (There you can also see how "powerful" the EU parliament is, and that they again pass laws that are obviously against the constitution. Laws that than must be fought for many years in front the EU courts before those laws get eventually declared illegal; at this point the EU just passes a new illegal law; they're using this "trick" since inception by the way. It worked fine locally in the countries for decades now. At least it's like that in Germany, but I don't think the other countries are an exception as the EU does it also like that since day one). Don't get me wrong with this last aside: I'm a big fan of the idea behind the EU. But the execution of this idea is more and more turning into a nightmare. Everything that would not be possible locally is cheated thru the EU institutions; than they claim locally "The EU wants it so. We must obey!". But the truth is, the EU is ruled by the governments of the countries, not by the people of said countries, so "the EU" actually does what the governments tell them — the obvious trick being here to "blame the EU" afterwards, pointing away form themself.
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    > Don't turn things upside down! The spirit is that they are now REQUIRED to spy on all their customers. By the law. Just like any shop owner is required by the law to report the same things if they happen in their shops. The purpose if the law is to MANDATE some behavior, it's not a simple advice. It's by design. No need to turn anything, this is the law working as intended, the opposite would be no law hence no rules. > But the execution of this idea is more and more turning into a nightmare I've heard this sentence so many times that I would be rich if I received a euro every time. Truth is EU is simply what European people want it to be. Ironically Germany supported the EU membership for the former eastern block and now those are the countries that are causing the majority of the controversial issues. > But the truth is, the EU is ruled by the governments of the countries, Again, working as intended. Governments are elected bodies. But also wrong: the parliament is elected by the EU people directly. I think it's time this silly argument dies, if we wanna have a fair conversation about EU.
lrem 5y ago
A bit of anecdata: I've joined Google 7 years ago to support an append-only very-large-scale database. About that time legal told us that an upcoming EU law will require selective deletion from the database. That was technically impossible and just against the design assumptions of the thing. Google spent millions of dollars to develop a solution to this conundrum over the next couple years. It was ready by the time GDPR came into force.

In fact, GDPR is only 3 years old. Let’s put timeline of the past 10 years. Has privacy increased or decreased?

by nicce 5y ago

In fact, GDPR is only 3 years old. Let’s put timeline of the past 10 years. Has privacy increased or decreased?

increased. A lot! (not thanks to US tech companies of course, but the laws in EU are trying to fix their excessive power and overreach) My (ex) girlfriend worked as a technical consultant on this law. I also usually agree with the Pirate Party and many critiques to some EU proposals are my critiques. I also voted for them in my country, I personally knew some of the candidates, we've been friends for a long time In my country we specifically focused on the right to distribute copyrighted material (via torrent or other technologies) that was of importance for the public. Like for example old movies or documentaries or film screenings in public open spaces, especially in smaller towns where there are no theatres. Or material in possession of public broadcast networks that was paid by the taxpayers. The national Television of my country produced something like hundreds of live recordings of bands that came here, but most of them never saw the light of day. In their archives there is, for example, a two hours Sonic Youth live, from 1989, recorded at the TV studios that actually was a full fledged concert hall for classical music. How cool is that? It never aired. But if you distribute it or show it to someone, technically you're breaking the law, even though citizen paid for it with their taxes. Unfortunately we elected zero representatives. Nevertheless how this vote is being presented is hyperbolic, to say the least, and doesn't reflect the work being done. The law presented has as a primary objectives making the tech giants responsible while protecting the EU people from their abuses. They are prohibited to spy on you, unless they have been authorized by the law. That's the spirit. Without legislation, in Europe what's not prohibited is permitted and people would be at the mercy of what corporations want to do with their data.

still_grokking 5y ago
> They are prohibited to spy on you, unless they have been authorized by the law. > That's the spirit. Don't turn things upside down! The spirit is that they are now REQUIRED to spy on all their customers. Before that they where not allowed to do it any more as there were no exceptions to the new e-privacy laws. So the companies stopped spying on people as it became illegal. That caused mayor panic in the EU government as they couldn't use those company's data for mass surveillance any more (law enforcement has access to that data; by now even secretly without court warrants! Before that they had "general warrants" for secret services, "national security" interests, and such). First thing the EU did was giving the companies an "emergency allowance" to do mass surveillance again. This law now turn that "emergency allowance" into proper rules, which not only allow mass surveillance, but make it mandatory. The story (like I told) up until the current point can be read here (frankly in German, by the biggest IT online-media there): https://www.heise.de/news/EU-Parlament-erlaubt-flaechendeckende-Scans-nach-Kinderpornografie-6130267.html https://www.heise.de/news/EU-Parlament-erlaubt-flaechendecke... (There you can also see how "powerful" the EU parliament is, and that they again pass laws that are obviously against the constitution. Laws that than must be fought for many years in front the EU courts before those laws get eventually declared illegal; at this point the EU just passes a new illegal law; they're using this "trick" since inception by the way. It worked fine locally in the countries for decades now. At least it's like that in Germany, but I don't think the other countries are an exception as the EU does it also like that since day one). Don't get me wrong with this last aside: I'm a big fan of the idea behind the EU. But the execution of this idea is more and more turning into a nightmare. Everything that would not be possible locally is cheated thru the EU institutions; than they claim locally "The EU wants it so. We must obey!". But the truth is, the EU is ruled by the governments of the countries, not by the people of said countries, so "the EU" actually does what the governments tell them — the obvious trick being here to "blame the EU" afterwards, pointing away form themself.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  > Don't turn things upside down! The spirit is that they are now REQUIRED to spy on all their customers. By the law. Just like any shop owner is required by the law to report the same things if they happen in their shops. The purpose if the law is to MANDATE some behavior, it's not a simple advice. It's by design. No need to turn anything, this is the law working as intended, the opposite would be no law hence no rules. > But the execution of this idea is more and more turning into a nightmare I've heard this sentence so many times that I would be rich if I received a euro every time. Truth is EU is simply what European people want it to be. Ironically Germany supported the EU membership for the former eastern block and now those are the countries that are causing the majority of the controversial issues. > But the truth is, the EU is ruled by the governments of the countries, Again, working as intended. Governments are elected bodies. But also wrong: the parliament is elected by the EU people directly. I think it's time this silly argument dies, if we wanna have a fair conversation about EU.

lrem 5y ago

A bit of anecdata: I've joined Google 7 years ago to support an append-only very-large-scale database. About that time legal told us that an upcoming EU law will require selective deletion from the database. That was technically impossible and just against the design assumptions of the thing. Google spent millions of dollars to develop a solution to this conundrum over the next couple years. It was ready by the time GDPR came into force.