GDPR has been a hot topic this spring and for good reasons. It seems that companies big and small are stepping up their attention related to the new regulation and want mine as well.

The purpose of the GDPR , the EU general data protection regulation, is “…to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons and in particular their right to protection of personal data and to ensure the free movement of personal data within the EU.”[1]

Well it seems that 6 out 10 Norwegians does not know what this new regulation is about according to Ispos [2]and their survey conducted in April 2018. This result matches well with the international survey of TNS [3]that was conducted in 56 countries and among 70.000 people where Norwegians are among the countries that are less concerned about the amount of personal data that companies know about them.

Although the timing for the introduction of new regulation in the EU has increased its hyper relevance in the pursuit of Zuckerberg’s apology for Facebook mistakes, in handling data belonging to 50 million of its users. Well these days you can not really miss it if you have been digitally connected at all. Already in April, I experienced that Apple started to push information about how seriously they considered the data protection as a fundamental human right. Lately I have been asked, to a point of annoyance, to accept Googles conditions to proceed with what ever my online intention was.

Well the smaller companies are getting here too, because only today I have received more than 20 mails from all different companies about how GDPR imposes additional obligations on organisations and gives me extra rights around how my data is used.

Since being in the marketing field I have been through the new regulation for quite some time, but I assume that most people (as the Ipsos survey reveals) does not. In that case it’s a lot to digest for a typical digital consumer, and it will keep coming more. The latest on I did received in my in box was at 23.05 PM the 24th of May, the day before the announced date for so long. Because the 25th of May 2018, is the very day GDPR comes into effect. They all want me to know that they as a company respects the information they hold on me and that they take the security of my information very seriously. Well that’s good to hear but giving me, this notice the day before does worry me a bit.

I wonder will they manage to continue being as transparent and serious about how they handle my personal data going forward? Well I believe we will have in the coming years, a line of trials in this field in order to set examples and I will not be surprised if one of the bigger companies are among the ones taken to court.

In the meantime we should all get a bit more familiar with our new rights and read what we should do if someone is breaching the regulations and.. Oops! another mail just bumped into my Inbox, from Adweek. Well they made it easy for me, only 55 words to read and the choice between I Do not Accept and I Accept. … I Accept 😊 and I promise I will read the little text tomorrow with my morning coffee!

[1] www.privacy-regulation.eu

[2] https://www.dn.no/etterBors/2018/04/24/1105/Markedsforing/6-av-10-aner-ikke-hva-gdpr-er-ekspert-tror-bevissthet-om-verdien-av-egne-data-vil-oke

[3] http://www.tnsglobal.com/press-release/connected-life-2017-press-release