EU privacy watchdog calls for more ‘processing of personal data’ transparency

Businesses should provide people with an "opt out" right to object to the processing of their personal data when they make an assessment that consent is not necessary as part of a big data project, an EU privacy watchdog has said. European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Giovanni Buttarelli said, though, that "more efforts …

[jake]

Yeah. Sure. Right. So-called "opt-out" really works.

See spam for a small variation on the theme.

Allow me to opt-in, if I wish. Otherwise, you will not get my business.

EOF

[Anonymous Coward]

Obtaining consent...

That's funny because I don't remember giving arseholes like FaceBook the right to track every website I visit, And since I don't have a FaceBook account I won't be able to 'opt-out' of anything...

Same goes for all those people who fell for the Windows 10 trap since there is no way to opt-out of Microsoft spying on you...

[Aoyagi Aichou]

Win10?

This has "Windows 10" written all over it with its tiny "learn more to see the advanced options to customise your settings to opt out of data slurping".

[sysconfig]

Here's a better alternative to mandatory opt-out feature:

Make things opt-in only. You want my data? You must first get my consent. End of.

To the regulators: Before you tackle anything else, start with making tracking cookies illegal in the EU, unless consent is explicitly obtained in plain English (or other appropriate language).

There's absolutely no justification why Farcebook, Twatter, Google and a whole slew of other advertisers should be allowed to record my activity on unrelated sites. It's not my problem that the webmasters think they need "like" buttons for every conceivable "social" media outfit.

In the meantime, I'll use blockers for those, but I shouldn't be forced to use tools to get some level of privacy.

[Vimes]

So in round 2 the failed 'implied consent' concept has returned and morphed into 'legitimate interest'. Who gets to establish if their interest is truly 'legitimate' I wonder? And by what standards?

Also note the implied assumption that businesses have any automatic right whatsoever to *our* data. Their problems are now apparently our own, and data rape is OK apparently if the aim is to 'innovate'.

[Vimes]

I also note the rather depressing tendency to try and minimise the rights of the public rather than enforce existing law, and all for the benefit of 'big data'.

If even a fraction of that effort was put into actually protecting our rights then there would be no need for any new laws. The existing laws just aren't enforced (witness for example the ICO scrambling for excuses to avoid doing anything in the wake of the Schrems court decision).