Digital data: "Protected on paper, not in reality"
GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, entered into force in 2018 in the European Union.
DR
Text by: Romain Mielcarek Follow
4 min
Since 2015, Max Schrems has been fighting a long court battle against Facebook and the digital giants.
The challenge, for this Austrian lawyer: to prevent the data of European users from escaping their control.
At the International Cyber Defense Forum (FIC) which was held until September 9 in Lille, he recalled the importance of protecting the freedoms of Internet users.
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RFI: We often present you by telling the story of a man who faces the big bad Facebook. Who are you and what are you doing?
I am just a simple lawyer who decided to look at the manufacturers of Silicon Valley to try to see what they do with our data. I try to uphold the rights that everyone has when they are online. This is something that is of general concern to everyone, but we often feel like we are powerless in this area. Our NGO Noyb ( "
None of your business
", "
this is not your business
"), works a bit like a consumer protection association, we are conducting these procedures for people who ask us.
When discussing the future of the internet, many concerns revolve around the fight against cyber criminals, the risks of clashes between states… Do you believe that there is still a possible peaceful future?
We're only just starting.
This universe, we do not yet know it very well.
At the beginning of our world, anything could happen to you, anywhere, as soon as you were outside.
This is why we started to build walls all over the cities.
I think that's kind of the logic behind the development of the internet.
It is a period of transition.
I believe there is a lot of potential to ensure that things move in the right direction.
But there is also a lot of potential for everything to degenerate.
It's an interesting time to draw what our future will look like.
Why is data protection an important subject for individual freedoms?
Depending on the individual, there are different things that we consider to be privacy.
But at least everyone considers something private.
The most classic is sexuality and romantic relationships.
These are not illegal or dangerous things.
Just things we don't want to share with everyone.
What the EU privacy law says is that you can choose for yourself what should be available to everyone on the internet or what should be kept secret.
It is this logic that we defend: your freedom to choose what is private or not.
Since you started this fight, have you observed a change in the attitude of the digital giants?
I think they are now aware that people are not happy.
But this does not lead to significant changes.
They continue to see these laws as undermining their business and that's it.
The big change in Europe has been the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which has been protecting data since 2018. It came as a shock to them.
For the first time, they realized that there was a subject.
The problem is that in Europe the laws protect freedoms well, but there are not many ways to enforce them.
We have protection on paper, but not in reality and on our phones.
►Also read: The law on the protection of personal data comes into force in the EU
Do you find that citizens are more aware of these issues than a few years ago?
Since the coronavirus, yes. We realized that even without being very active on the internet, we cannot escape it. Before, some would say: if that doesn't suit you, just don't use these services. No one can say that anymore. I think people have also become aware of the power that these companies have over us, thanks to this data. People don't understand everything. To take an example related to the surveillance of the coronavirus, there was an application in Austria that was very respectful of privacy, but everyone was opposed to it by denouncing excessive surveillance ... while most people use it in permanently Google and Facebook which are much less respectful of our privacy. And for the latter, it's not even about protecting us,simply to commercially exploit our data! There are very instinctive reactions to these questions, which sometimes fall short of the stakes.
What are your current struggles?
We have something like four or five hundred complaints going on right now.
It's a very technical job.
A labor of legal ants.
It's not very sexy!
But it is very important because it is about asserting our rights.
Because if you have rights, but ultimately you have no way of enforcing them, it is not of much interest.
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