While today the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force across EU member states after a two-year implementation period comes to an end, «we welcome the novel aspects of this law, which are now legally enforceable», stated yesterday GUE/NGL German MEP Cornelia Ernst (Die Linke), who negotiated the legislation on behalf of the group. «Privacy is a right without which democracy in the age of the Internet cannot function – despite the security approach of the law-enforcement establishment», she added. «This regulation will assure minimum technical standards by making companies build data protection into the new products and services they design (privacy-by-design and privacy-by-default). As for companies that process information in a large-scale, the regulation is unambiguous, those who do not abide by the rules, will be asked to pay and it won’t be little». Only weakness of the legislation, warned Cornelia Ernst: «Certain governments have made it clear that they intend to soften the GDPR because for them it is too bureaucratic and sudden. This made me realise how member states and companies are disproportionately unprepared and uninformed compared to the massive and organised lobby efforts they had mounted during the negotiations».
Photo: Cornelia Ernst / Mathieu Cugnot / Copyright © European Union 2016 – Source: EP