This Week’s Le[e]gal Brief: Protecting Your Personal Data
“Scroll. Tap. Accept all cookies. In a few seconds you just made more legal decisions than most people make in the courtroom,” Lee Merritt, Esq., explains in the latest Le[e]gal Brief. “No judge, no lawyer, but a company may have grabbed your location, your contacts, your browsing history, maybe even your face.”
This week’s Le[e]gal Brief is all about how to protect your data in our increasingly technological age. It feels like every few months there’s a story about how a company, social media platform, or even government agency is subject to a massive data breach where thousands of people’s information has been exposed to a bad actor. Data breaches are a major reason for the noticeable uptick in text and phone call scams.
While the American government is largely in the pocket of Big Tech companies, the European Union (EU) has implemented the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
“Think of it like a rule book that treats your information as something valuable. Not just fuel for ads and AI,” Merritt explains. “It tells companies you can’t just vacuum up data because your app is nosy. You have to say what you’re taking, why you’re taking it, and what you plan to do with it.”
While the GDPR is an EU regulation, tech companies have quietly changed their policies so that the GDPR’s protections can be applied globally.
Merritt outlines the three rights you should be aware of when it comes to protecting your personal data and hopefully avoiding any unauthorized usage.
The first right is the right to be informed. “You have a right to know who’s collecting your data, what they’re doing with it, how long they keep it, and who they share it with,” Merritt explains. This is why whenever you enter a new site or start a new online video game, you’re given a cookie pop-up or a privacy notice explaining how your data is going to be used.
“If you don’t know who has your data, you can’t challenge bad uses of it,” Merritt adds in the video.
The second is the right to access your data and have it forgotten. “You can ask a company, ‘Show me what you have on me,’ and they’re supposed to immediately send you a copy you can actually read,” Merritt explains. He adds that, outside of situations where a company has a “strong legal reason to keep it,” you can ask a company to delete your data.
“That’s how you pull your information back from companies [that] never should have had it or no longer need it,” Merritt says in the video.
Lastly, you have the right to object and challenge automated decisions. This right will only become more relevant as AI becomes increasingly widespread across companies. “In some cases, you can say, ‘I don’t want this major decision about my life made only by a machine,’” Merritt explains. “That matters when AI is involved in deciding who gets a job, a loan, housing, or who gets flagged as risky.”
As technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, it’s incredibly important you know your rights when it comes to protecting your personal data. Later in the episode, Merritt provides three actions you can take to regain control of your personal data.
If you want to ensure you know rights in our incredibly tumultuous times, don’t miss your weekly Le[e]gal Brief.
SEE ALSO:
Le[e]gal Brief: The Disturbing Rise Of ‘Comply Or Die’ Policing
Le[e]gal Brief: Live Nation Antitrust Case And The CFTC Vs. Nevada
This Week’s Le[e]gal Brief: Protecting Your Personal Data was originally published on newsone.com
