More than 59,000 breach notifications have been reported to regulators of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) since it was introduced on May 25, 2018, according to new findings from DLA Piper, a global law firm.
Expert Comments below:
Chris Olson, CEO at The Media Trust:
“No doubt, 2019 will be a banner year for GDPR fines. Last year’s total of 60 foreshadows what’s to come: a consumer movement building up steam against growing surveillance of their behavior, governments responding to consumer outrage by regulating data, and large companies like Cisco, Apple, and Microsoft joining the clarion call for more such laws. The issues we are facing here goes beyond the need for data privacy and security; they include the ability of organizations—for- and not-for-profit—to predict and influence consumer behavior in the context of purchasing, voting, etc. The inordinate amount of data being collected and how it’s used are worrisome for Main Street and Wall Street. In the digital world, data is not only money, it enables influence, and, when breached, can exact enormous damage. The internet has made it difficult for consumers, fed a steady diet of information that aligns with their online behavior, to tell the difference between real and fake news. It has also provided bad actors with a fast pass to commit data breaches that have wreaked havoc with the stock market. Organizations have the ethical and moral responsibility to secure data from breaches and refrain from abusing that data, which includes collecting them without the consumer’s consent and using them outside the scope of the purposes the consumer consented to.”
