Swedish Privacy Watchdog Urges GDPR Review
Personal data protection is important but shouldn't be an unnecessary obstacle to innovation and development, the Swedish Data Protection Authority said Tuesday in a newspaper op-ed unofficial translation. Accordingly, there are good reasons to consider criticism of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it added.
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Many technologies collect personal data, and technological development can answer many major challenges of our time, but they also come with risks, the article said. Moreover, they often have one thing in common: One way or another, they amass data about people and record movement patterns, financial conditions and health. Clearly, increased data collection carries risks from a privacy protection perspective, it added.
The Swedish government tasked its data protection authority with monitoring developments in privacy protection and technology and reporting its observations every four years. This year's report recommended, among other things, that the GDPR be reviewed because it's complicated, difficult to apply and many believe it hampers competitiveness and innovation. Without a review, the authority said, there's a risk that rules will be circumvented.