eco’s Managing Director Alexander Rabe: “The GDPR is fundamentally the right approach to completing a digital single market in Europe, which must not be stifled by contradictory pettiness and excessive bureaucracy”.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been in force in Europe for four years. However, there is still uncertainty about its interpretation and implementation. eco – Association of the Internet Industry calls for a uniform application of the GDPR that not only creates legal clarity and the necessary scope for development and innovation but also makes it easier for Internet users to handle.
eco’s Managing Director Alexander Rabe said:
“Four years ago, the GDPR was supposed to provide the impetus to standardise European regulations. This is exactly how the GDPR is perceived internationally, and that is positive. Of course, functioning data protection and GDPR-compliant actions build further trust in digital services and applications in the best case. Thus, the GDPR is fundamentally the right approach for the completion of a digital single market in Europe, which must not be stifled by contradictory pettiness and excessive bureaucracy.
As things stand, its interpretation varies not only among a large number of EU Member States – even within Germany, there are doubts about the uniformity of the views of the state data protection commissioners. This is not a reliable signal for anyone: this uncertainty, which ultimately affects us all – from corporations and SMEs to start-ups, as well as schools, administrations and ultimately every Internet user – must be eliminated by politicians as soon as possible. At the federal level, the coalition government can achieve this, among other things, with joint guidelines. eco External Data Protection Officers provide support here.
And data exchange outside Europe must also be simplified urgently in the course of the GDPR. The harmonisation of transatlantic data transfer must now be at the top of the agenda so as not to cause further uncertainty for SMEs and the digital transformation in general. The signal from EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Joe Biden have given us hope. Now there must be pragmatic and easily implementable solutions in a timely manner.
