Just think a little, ponder for a moment, why Facebook might have done this. Is it because Zuckerberg is an evil genius? They wish to rape our data some more? Or is it because they – as we should – understand the idiocy of the way the European Union makes and applies law?
Facebook has moved more than 1.5 billion users out of reach of European privacy law, despite a promise from Mark Zuckerberg to apply the “spirit” of the legislation globally.
In a tweak to its terms and conditions, Facebook is shifting the responsibility for all users outside the US, Canada and the EU from its international HQ in Ireland to its main offices in California. It means that those users will now be on a site governed by US law rather than Irish law.
I think we know that pretty much everywhere is now going to have data protection laws, right? There’s going to be an upgrade to the system?
Great, so, most places are going to have slightly different regulations about what these are, aren’t they? And Facebook has to obey the correct regulations, in each country and for the country that data comes from. Say, data from Japan will have Japanese data protections, that from Germany will have EU.
So, why do you move Japanese data out from being covered by EU law? Because the Japanese and EU data protection laws are most unlikely to agree with each other, that’s why.
Jeebus, these things aren’t difficult, are they?
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One of my hobbies is historical geographical research, which includes transcribing old paper/microfiche documents, correcting them and digitising them so they are searchable. I've just finished the 1951 electoral register for my home town, and am planning on starting the 1961 register. But then I start wondering if by doing so I'm going to be hitting the GDPR restrictions. I could end up digitising information just for it to be have to be archived and made unaccessible for years until it passes some arbitary threashold.