January 28, 2016 is the 10th annual Data Protection Day in Europe, known as Data Privacy Day outside of Europe. This year, it represents a major tipping point for managing personal data.
The four year battle over the wording of the European Union's new Data Protection Regulation was largely finished in December, meaning it is time to move on from the rhetoric of the opposing camps to planning for implementation.
Personal Data: the Lifeblood of Modern Life
Business wants one legal regime for personal data across Europe. But the final agreed document is at an uncomfortably high level for many companies. Last month, Paul Nemitz, Director, Fundamental Rights and Union Citizenship at the European Commission, gave a rare commendation to a specific company for its privacy practices. He declared: Personal data is not a commodity. It is the life blood of modern life in the 21st century. In European history and culture, a person is not an object Personal data is like the stock market. If there is lack of confidence, then the value of a company goes down. Apple is strong on data and encryption, and is the world's highest value company on the stock market. He wanted to show that respect for personal data is compatible with commercial success.
For anyone not wanting to struggle through the 209 page document, here are a few of the Regulation's most important strategic points for your organization:
People worry about what is happening with their personal data. This can lead to distrust for businesses and the government which holds and processes this data. In the US, data breaches have been the main focus of attention for companies and individuals driven by state legislation starting with California. But the emphasis in Europe is rights for individuals and resulting heavyweight legal duties for companies.
Unambiguous Consent for the Collection of Personal Data
Longstanding rights of access and correction are now greatly expanded to include unambiguous consent for use of a person's data and a right of data portability. This means that, for example, individuals will be entitled to transfer their mobile device records from one supplier to get a quote from another.
A case which illustrates the unambiguous consent issue is the current legal battle between Facebook and Belgium's Commission for the Protection of Privacy, in which the Belgian court imposed a fine of 250,000 euros (US $272,000) a day payable to the Commission. The Belgian DPA's position has now gained the support of other privacy regulators such as those in France, Spain and the Netherlands.
The Belgian court ruled that Facebook's practice of putting cookies on devices of non-Facebook registered users visiting Facebook violates Belgian data protection law. According to Facebook, these cookies are necessary for security reasons. Whereas people with Facebook accounts are more likely to understand this process, visitors to Facebook who do not have an account are unlikely to understand the implications of their visit. The privacy policy relevant to them is on page 10 of a 10 page policy and even clicking on a Facebook like button or choosing a language option is considered an opt-in according to Facebook's procedure.
This case is a preview of what can be expected when the EU Data Protection Regulation enters into force in 2018. The Data Protection Authorities will expect a company, such as Facebook, which has not gained unambiguous consent for use of a person's data, to comply with such orders in all territories of the EU as a means of aiming for consistency with the requirements of the EU Data Protection Regulation.
More attention has been given to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Last October, it was determined in the Schrems case that the US-EU Safe Harbor to be no longer valid as a legal basis for transferring personal data from the European Economic Area to the US. As a special deal for the US based on self-regulation, some commentators regarded the Safe Harbour as neither safe nor a harbor. As a result, many multinational companies, such as Salesforce, have quickly turned to legal alternatives, EU model contracts and Binding Corporate Rules.
European storage and cloud services increasingly attractive
Seeing the direction of travel of the EU Data Protection Regulation negotiations, many companies are shifting their processing and storage of customer and employee data to a country in the European Union. This move will give companies more certainty about a secure legal basis for their processing of personal data. This is a substantial commercial opportunity for cloud services that give customers an opportunity to specify the country in which they want to base their service. In the same way, some traditionally US-based cloud services now offer EU-based options. Microsoft is even running a long legal battle in the New York courts denying that US law applies to these EU-based services.
Data protection day is just one day, but the values it represents are increasingly important.
For more information about data privacy, navigate to our Data Privacy & Protection Zone.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
January 28, 2016 is the 10th annual Data Protection Day in Europe, known as Data Privacy Day outside of Europe. This year, it represents a major tipping point for managing personal data.
