Sorry but the headlines below all contain the obvious biscuit pun!
Knowing, explicitly, what an organisation plans to do with your personal data when you access a web site or sign up for an online service is an essential step in maintaining your privacy. Have a look at this article I wrote for Octagon Technology, looking at the choices I made:
However I know there are people who do not like the pop-ups, they let everyone know they do not like them and and probably they do not read the explanations and are happy that their data is sold on to anybody and everybody. I have had to listen to web designers and web marketeers complain about having to give people the option to “opt in” rather than “opt out” – but they of course have different motivations…
Yes, I agree the pop-ups can be a little annoying. But the pop-ups I really find annoying are the ones that give you too much choice, just to catch you into accepting their defaults – good for the owner but not so good for the user.
Now the government is proposing to slacken some cookie and other data protection regulations – to have a gap between us and our European neighbours and to remove the “box ticking exercise”. Below are a couple of articles looking at all sides of the argument. Saving businesses money, removing some of the work from smaller companies and giving the ICO some flexibility in the investigations it carries out all sound like good ideas. However will Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, still be able to refer to our data protection as a “gold standard”? Then there is the issue that there is no detail on how the proposals would work in our technologically connected world. (Remember online age verification?)
Read the articles and make your own mind up!
Can crumbling cookies sweeten UK data-protection plans? – BBC News
That’s the way cookie consent crumbles in UK law proposals • The Register
I would like to say that I do not feel it is a “box ticking exercise”. It is if you do not read the descriptions or make an informed choice. (But then using the government’s own words, that makes our elections and referendums a “box ticking exercise”!)
It is your choice whether you choose to read the explanations so you can make an informed decision – it is a free country, even for those who do not complain.
As part of this review the government is also going to change the human responsibility for the decisions of Big Tech AI systems:
Clive Catton MSc (Cyber Security) – by-line and other articles
Further Reading
Data: a new direction – government response to consultation – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Age-verification for online pornography to begin in July – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) (2019)
UK drops plans for online pornography age verification system | Internet | The Guardian (2019)
