If people give consent to storage of information to allow access to a service (banking, Netflix, etch) then it is legal if the information is necessary for the service and is reasonable for the data holder to hold.) anonymous information is not protected data so long as it does not identify individuals.
The entire operation.
Then by this standard shouldn’t the aggregation of anonymous data by Google be acceptable under EU law? Account numbers, government IDs, and other private data would be maintained by those respective websites, not Google. I think everyone here agrees that Google has no legitimate business holding that kind of info, except when they themselves act as the merchant, e.g. Google Play Books/Music.
No. The ‘data’ in full appears on their own servers and is stored and sorted automatically. They are processing personal data and hence must act within the law.
I do not see what is difficult to grasp.
You’re failing to grasp the difference between an ‘ought’ and an ‘is’.
Of course a government can make laws people must then act within; nobody fails to grasp that. A government can announce that you’ll be jailed for questioning religious dogma, or criticizing elected officials, or teaching science, or reporting news.
As per another current thread, a government can declare that you’ll face punishment if you state your opinion of – or, say, mention inconvenient facts about – the death penalty, at which point, shrug, you Must Act Within The Law.
The question isn’t whether it’s a law. The question is whether it’s a bad law.
It depends on how much you value privacy.The right to a private life is guaranteed by the ECHR. SCOTUS also protects privacy.
I quote Justice Hugo Black:
“‘Privacy’ is a broad, abstract and ambiguous concept.” There is no one sense of privacy which can be extracted from the various Court decisions which have touched upon it. The mere act of labeling something “private” and contrasting it with “public” implies that we are dealing with something which should be removed from government interference.
“According to those who emphasize individual autonomy and civil liberties, the existence of a realm of both private property and private conduct should, as much as possible, be left alone by the government. It is this realm which serves to facilitate the moral, personal and intellectual development of each individual, without which a functioning democracy is not possible.”
I have a right to control my private information. If someone collects such private information, that is not illegal in the UK, nor is it illegal for Police or Press to do so. But if an individual organisation collates such private information and makes it searchable in a database, then it must comply with a very reasonable law which requires that it must have a legal reason for doing so.
It is an anti-snooper charter and seems quite reasonable from a 21st century perspective.
Note those last three words there. Then note this:
That’s a 180. Don’t quote him on how folks should be left alone by the government as much as possible when forcing private actors to justify themselves to the government in order to relay truthful information; just don’t; it’s bad form; make your argument for unnecessary government action some other way: not with that quote.
So in the same way you would see that the concept of Private Property should not be interfered with by Government- the State should allow theft, use without permission of other people’s property and the distribution of other people’s private property without their permission.
I do not think so.
The European law is doing do more for Private Information than every state has always done for property rights- ensuring that it is not abused.
When Hugo Black says that Government should treat the
"…realm of both private property and private conduct " as warranting being “left alone by the government.”
he was talking about undue interference, not total disregard of such rights.
All this law does is to respect a person’s right to their own personal information in the way that their personal property is respected by others and by the state.
I resent an organisation collecting information on my personal habits of spending and behaving and then using that for its own ends. If I wish to give them permission to use that information, that is fine, but if I wish to withdraw it, that is also fine. It is the same rule that I would apply to my possessions- I may allow others to use them, but if they do not have my permission, they can only use it within the law.
Of course not. That’s the “as much as possible” in the quote you cheerfully relayed: we need the government to safeguard property from theft, and so the government can of course step in to stop people from swiping stuff. But we don’t need the government to stop folks from telling the truth and keeping accurate records, so – as per the quote – people doing that sort of thing say It’s None Of Your Business to the government, at which point society would remain intact.
Or was he talking about undue interference with truth-tellers who keep good records?
I resent people stopping those organizations – or private citizens like myself – from telling the truth and keeping accurate records. Why should your resentment rather than mine carry the day? Why should resentment be the deciding factor?
And the rule I’d apply to my possessions – for example, my accurate records of truthful information – is that I get to decide how to use 'em, since, y’know, they’re my accurate records of truthful information. I’m ever so glad we’ve both now stated what our respective rules would be.
Why should a corporation have the right to collect information that may well be partial or false about a person and then process it to pass it on to others.
In the UK I can approach any organisation and demand to have a complete list of all the information that they hold about me on a retrieval system. That is a freedom- do you have it? I can further require that they remove anything that is untrue. That is a freedom- do you have it? Further, I can demand they remove anything that is not within their purview to know. That is a freedom- do you have it?
None of this stops the informal recording of personal information, so long as it is not processed for easy accessibility.
Why are you saying “a corporation” when you’re just as happy to stop “me” from collecting information? And why limit this to info that may be “partial or false” when you’re just as happy to stop me – or that corporation – from relaying truthful and representative information?
Don’t be half-assed about this; use your whole ass. You want the government to stop corporations and private citizens from relaying information regardless of whether it’s true or false, partial or complete, misleading or on point.
You’re missing the point. Imagine a system in which you can’t do any of that, and you also can’t relay truthful information from your accurate records. If I say the system would be improved by changing the latter, then it’s completely irrelevant whether I also think the system would get even better by changing the former.
This thread is about the latter, which I hold to be an improvement regardless of whether we also throw in the stuff about requiring the removal of false claims. If you want to open a separate thread about requiring the removal of false claims, I’ll say yes, that sounds like it’d be an improvement over the alternative – regardless of whether the government bans people from relaying truthful information from their accurate records.
I’d view either as an improvement over the alternative; I’d go on to say that both are better than neither, but how is that relevant to discussing this one in particular?
It is a Freedom for me that a corporation cannot just collect information willy-nilly to promote its business.
I value my privacy, you obviously do not. We shall just have to disagree.
Meanwhile, Google will need to bend if it wants to do business in Europe; apparently it is already setting up a compliance unit.
Or a private citizen, right? You also hold it to be a capital-F Freedom for you that a guy like me “cannot just collect information willy-nilly” because stuff, right?
I value my capital-F Freedom to collect information and tell the truth. You obviously don’t. We’ll just have to disagree, I guess.
Yes, and if folks pass laws stating that nobody – be they people like me, or corporations like Google – can criticize religions, or report the news, or point out a politician’s lies, or whatever, then we’d of course need to bend to do business there; I’d need to bend to go about my life there; it’s that pesky is/ought thing again; of course a government can censor whatever it pleases, the question is whether it should.
You can collect all the information you like. You cannot process it using a retrieval system.
You have that Freedom to collect information and to tell the truth. You just cannot store it on a retrieval system.
I can be well-informed and honest, as long as I’m not especially good at it? I can be accurate, as long as I don’t make it easy to be right? Well, thanks for not championing ignorance as much as you could, I guess.
Now you are going over the top.
But, yes, Google needs to work within our libel and business laws. The US does not have the monopoly on good laws and laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. That is the cost of doing business in other people’s countries.
Now in the UK I highly value the fact that Health care is treated as Education is in the USA- free at the point of use for all to use. I highly value the fact that if I move abroad I do not have to pay UK Tax. I highly value the fact that my passport allows me to travel to any country in the world. I highly value the fact that our culture and laws mean that my children are not at risk of being shot and that our police are rarely armed with guns. I highly value the fact that the Mass media is wide ranging so far as the Press is concerned, that television is regulated to stop the lowest common denominator of News and Entertainment and that people cannot buy political advertising beyond strict limits. Additionally anyone can vote without having to jump through hoops set up to stop the poor and dark skinned voting, and that we don’t kill people for breaking the law.
Different countries have different laws that lead to different outcomes.
Some people are mature enough to understand that there are more ways of skinning a cat than the one preferred by their government.
You may collect the information, but not automate it. Seems a small price to pay for the Freedom we have from the tyranny of the corporation.
I swear, it’s like you don’t even read my posts.
I keep telling you there are things I’d change about the American system. You keep replying as if I’m saying the opposite. I’m criticizing one particular law which I think is flawed and monstrous and reprehensible, even as I freely grant that other laws here in the US should be changed for the better or scrapped altogether.
And you keep posting as if – to enlighten me on the latter point. Why? I keep flatly telling you that I disagree with various American laws as strongly as I disagree with this one, and you keep acting like (a) my opinion of those other laws were somehow relevant to this discussion, and (b) I didn’t agree with you about those other laws.
How do you keep missing that? Why do you post the exact opposite?
I’d rather be able to tell the government it’s none of their business whether I automate it or not; small price to pay for the Freedom to collect information and make truthful statements absent the tyranny of people who can fine me and jail me.
The question was whether “acting within the law” allows a corporation to retain this data in full on their servers as long as they only use it as reasonably justified by the nature of the business (i.e. they can crunch numbers and look for general patterns of querying behavior), but they can’t disclose sensitive personal information.