Monday marked Memorial Day in the United States, while in Europe, it marked the second anniversary of GDPR going into effect, a monumental occasion to be sure. But what does the future of the data privacy law look like in light of current events, including governments’ use of contact tracing applications to fight COVID-19? Are we ready to sacrifice a little data privacy if it means saving one life from coronavirus? We asked data experts to weigh in on the matter.
On May 25, 2018, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) officially became the law of the land. Overnight, citizens of the EU suddenly gained much more control over their digital lives and the data that’s generated from it, while companies that collect and process personal data suddenly had to show a lot more responsibility in how they handle it, and in the most severe cases, comply with people’s requests to disappear from the database entirely.