Data Privacy and GDPR Handbook

1Origins and Concepts of Data Privacy

Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.

— Marlon Brando

We generate enormous amounts of personal data and give it away without caring about our privacy.

Before the wake-up alarm rings on our smartphone, our heartbeats and sleeping patterns were being recorded through the night on the embedded app on our wrist watch. We turn on our customized morning playlist on Spotify, read the headlines tailored for our interests on Apple or Google news, retweet on Twitter, upvote on Quora, register likes on WhatsApp, post a snapshot of the snow outside our window, and look up on what our friends are up to on Facebook. We then check the weather forecast and ask Alexa to order cereal from Amazon. We are ready to go to work.

Unimaginable convenience for us commoners without a royal butler feels splendid. The invisible cost is that we are under constant surveillance whenever we use these services. All our choices, actions, and activities are being recorded and stored by the seemingly free technology-driven conveniences.

When we take an Uber or Lyft to work, our location and destination are known to them from previous trips. Today’s journey is also recorded, including the name of the driver and how we behaved – spilling coffee may show up on our passenger rating if the driver notices it. A smile and thank-you wave to the driver are worth five rating stars. Our choice of coffee at Starbucks may already be programmed ...