[HN Gopher] EU-US privacy shield 2.0 is again a political show
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       EU-US privacy shield 2.0 is again a political show
        
       Author : pumkesjaan
       Score  : 56 points
       Date   : 2022-04-24 17:55 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.simpleanalytics.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.simpleanalytics.com)
        
       | turbinerneiter wrote:
       | The biggest issue I have here is this: the EU is unable to uphold
       | their own laws. They do things violating their own rules. They
       | are unable to either patch their rules or stop the violation.
       | 
       | I have seen similar things in German legislation, where the
       | government tried to pass data retention laws that were cancelled
       | by the constitutional court over and over again.
       | 
       | The rules of business in the EU are such that the user has to
       | have a certain control over the data a company has on them. The
       | US rules giving law and intelligence access to this kind of data
       | are fundamentally incompatible with that.
       | 
       | Either the EU changes their rules, the US changes theirs
       | (granting EU citizens some form of recourse) or the companies
       | change where they store their data.
       | 
       | Instead, they write agreements that will never hold up in court.
        
         | ILMostro7 wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization
        
         | twoneurons wrote:
         | They are kind of useful to levy billions of dollars from a
         | handful of US companies. Laws are absurd, over complicated, and
         | unevenly applied, but at least they finance the Brussels
         | bureaucracy.
         | 
         | I wonder if the Catholic Church applies the laws of data
         | protection. If they retain or delete the records of the
         | approximately 80% of baptized population.
        
           | xdennis wrote:
           | Privacy Shield died because the US explicitly believes in
           | citizen rights, not human rights:
           | 
           | > Agencies shall, to the extent consistent with applicable
           | law, ensure that their privacy policies exclude persons who
           | are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents
           | from the protections of the Privacy Act regarding personally
           | identifiable information.
           | 
           | -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU%E2%80%93US_Privacy_Shield
           | 
           | It's easy to be cynical and blame the EU for being
           | bureaucratic, but in this case the EU is actually doing its
           | job: protecting its citizens from the abuses of foreign
           | governments who won't grant us equal human rights.
        
             | legalcorrection wrote:
             | EU governments rampantly spy on their own citizens and
             | domestically held data in ways that would make US agencies
             | blush. This is exposed over and over again but no one cares
             | because everyone is fixated on the US.
        
               | simion314 wrote:
               | Can your refresh my memory, of such illegal spying? Also
               | the GIANT difference is that US can legally spy on non US
               | citizens, so even if I would complain that NSA hacked my
               | company and stole a lot of people private data the
               | Americans will just say "they did their job, all is
               | legal" , there is need for an agreement so we respect
               | each other citizens. if you think X is a terrorist and
               | want to read his emails then does not matter if X is or
               | not a US citizens you follow the laws and present a judge
               | your evidence and ask for permission to spy.
        
             | twoneurons wrote:
             | The big question is what's the origin of these laws, given
             | that people add little value themselves, as expressed by
             | their own choices, to privacy and conservative data
             | management?
             | 
             | I wonder if the EU citizens have special needs virtually
             | every other citizen in the world doesn't have?
             | 
             | Or is the EU trying to establish a power position versus
             | american companies?
             | 
             | I wish we asked the citizens, who do you want to trust your
             | data to, Google, or the government?
             | 
             | Q: "Do you wish to exercise your right to be forgotten, in
             | your relation with the government?"
             | 
             | A: "Yes, I don't want the government to know who I am"
        
               | avianlyric wrote:
               | What on earth are you talking about?
               | 
               | > I wonder if the EU citizens have special needs
               | virtually every other citizen in the world doesn't have?
               | 
               | The EU believes that privacy is a human right that
               | everyone should have, GDPR is just the law the helps to
               | ensure that right is upheld. It provides a framework for
               | companies and governments to process data in way that
               | ensures that a person right to privacy is respected.
               | 
               | > I wish we asked the citizens, who do you want to trust
               | your data to, Google, or the government?
               | 
               | What has this got to do with anything? GDPR applies
               | equally to governments and companies. State governments
               | and institutions in the EU have been sued on a number of
               | occasions for violating GDPR.
               | 
               | > Q: "Do you wish to exercise your right to be forgotten,
               | in your relation with the government?" > > A: "Yes, I
               | don't want the government to know who I am"
               | 
               | GDPR does not provide a universal right to be forgotten.
               | Legitimate interests governments to store a minimum set
               | of data needed administrate functions like tax
               | collections. But beyond those basic functions you
               | absolutely have the right to be forgotten, and many of
               | the aforementioned law suites revolve around individuals
               | suing the state for retaining personal data
               | inappropriately.
               | 
               | Going to make the assumption you're American. I would
               | point out the US constitutions 4th amendment is meant to
               | restrict your governments collection of data on its
               | citizen in a similar fashion to GDPR. Only difference is
               | that GDPR is modern legislation that deals with the
               | internet, and restricts companies in addition to
               | governments.
               | 
               | It's such a shame that US government seems to be hellbent
               | on ignoring or perverting the 4th amendment as much as
               | possible. For some reason you seem to believe this
               | intrusion is reasonable, and wish to inflict in on every
               | citizen in the world.
        
               | twoneurons wrote:
               | >The EU believes that privacy is a human right that
               | everyone should have
               | 
               | Specially from the moment that political position can
               | procure them financial rents, and a good pretext to stop
               | the penetration of american companies in the economy.
               | 
               | And no, I am from a country inside the EU, and I am
               | appalled at how the Brussels bureaucrats keep interfering
               | in my relations with companies.
        
               | dmitriid wrote:
               | When asked, 90% of people seaid no to "Do you ant to be
               | tracked" popup that iOS introduced.
               | 
               | So yeah, it's clear that:
               | 
               | 1. Most people do not want for companies to collect more
               | data than necessary
               | 
               | 2. GDPR in no way, shape, or form interferes with "you
               | relations with companies" if those companies, you kno,
               | actually followed the law. You'd get a simple "yes/no"
               | question, you'd click yes, and everybody else would click
               | "no".
        
         | KarlKemp wrote:
         | It's an agreement to change the rules, obviously. So I don't
         | quite see what other form this should or even could take.
         | 
         | And, FWIW, some back-and-forth with the constitutional court is
         | entirely normal and expected. It's not a crime or otherwise
         | dubious to have a difference of opinion on the most complicated
         | legal issues.
        
           | turbinerneiter wrote:
           | I very strongly disagree with your second paragraph. All the
           | laws I know of in Germany that had trouble with the
           | constitutional court were highly dubious. I think a law
           | overturned by the constitutional court should be the end of a
           | ploticians career or at least be the first strike. It's a
           | complete failure to uphold the very thing they are sworn into
           | an it's a complete failure in their own profession.
           | 
           | I can see that there might be complicated legal issues were
           | my opinion would be wrong, but the stuff I know about (data
           | retention laws and fission fuel tax) were absolutely
           | abhorrent displays of incompetence and disrespect of the
           | constitution.
        
             | twoneurons wrote:
             | Agreed. Legislation should be clearly within the
             | consitition, beyond any doubt. Back and forth with the
             | constitutional tribunal pushes the boundaries of the
             | constitution, and risks the tribunal conceding. In
             | addition, the tribunal many times can't enforce violations
             | of the spirit of the constitution, only blatant concrete
             | breaches.
             | 
             | And remember, the constitution was an agreement signed by
             | many groups, and every single clause of it represents the
             | result of negotiations and struggles.
             | 
             | Changing the constitution means overriding that consensus.
        
         | avianlyric wrote:
         | > The biggest issue I have here is this: the EU is unable to
         | uphold their own laws. They do things violating their own
         | rules. They are unable to either patch their rules or stop the
         | violation.
         | 
         | I think that's a feature not a bug. The EU believed that
         | privacy is a basic human right, and codified that right into
         | law. But the EU isn't a single minded entity, it's a huge,
         | entirely unique, multi-national government. The natural result
         | is that it behaviour can be contradictory and inconsistent at
         | times. But the codified rights make it possible for the
         | judicial system to step in and correct the errors as they
         | happen.
         | 
         | Eventually the EU will develop a cultural in-grained
         | understanding of privacy and GDPR. Then we'll see the end of
         | these silly violations, and the continual need for the judicial
         | system to step in and correct the legislative system. Until
         | then, at-least the EU isn't afraid to empower its citizens to
         | hold it to account.
        
       | kkfx wrote:
       | Honestly as an EU citizen... On one side there is no real
       | development of a better IT infra to surpass/came back the giant
       | data-centers model, witch means toward a real old-new connected
       | desktop-centric IT AND there are not real EU competitors for many
       | services from USA companies, so one one side EU do not really
       | want to led again in tech nor to create a new and better IT.
       | 
       | On the other side EU commission prove to be as oppressive and not
       | representative of their Citizens interests as USA Gov for USA
       | Citizens witch means that beside the formal democratic dress the
       | substance is a neoliberal economically-driven dictatorship who
       | tend as fast as it can to the Chinese model. We still have less
       | ineffective justice, more protective norms, but differences are
       | waning more and more. Swapping crappy and bad USA services that
       | at least are battle tested with more crappy and even worse EU
       | services does not help Citizens at all.
       | 
       | For me until enough intellectual and techies rise training enough
       | common citizens to IMPOSE BY LAW mandatory FLOSS and mandatory
       | open hardware that makes the actual model not really sustainable
       | we will not get anything really better.
       | 
       | It's like those who flee GitHub for GitLab because "we do not
       | want Microsoft" as if any other for-profit company would be
       | better by magic. The real target should be surpassing the actual
       | web model. not swapping an evil actor with another who being
       | based on the very same principles will clearly be the very same.
        
       | dataking wrote:
       | > For example, we've built a privacy-friendly alternative to
       | Google Analytics called Simple Analytics.
       | 
       | This is mostly a plug for their EU-compliant alternative to
       | Google Analytics.
        
         | rmbyrro wrote:
         | Let'em plug in peace, they also have bills (and perhaps
         | employee salaries) to pay...
        
           | ILMostro7 wrote:
           | Scrape a lil more off my backside, please. Of course I
           | understand that as soon as I bend down, I have given consent
           | and two enthusiastic thumbs up!
           | 
           | You could either enjoy the hint of vulgarity there or the
           | lack thereof; otherwise lazy reading, imo. Unless you are of
           | the opinion that the only way a company can make money is
           | through intrusive/abusive data analytics.
        
       | lmkg wrote:
       | Quick refresher on context: Under GDPR, personal data sent from
       | the EU to another country must have some level of protections in
       | that country. By _far_ the easiest option is an  "adequacy
       | decision," where the EU says "that country has good data
       | protections" and no extra work must be done. USA has jack-diddly-
       | squat for data protections in most contexts, but Privacy Shield
       | was the work-around where companies could opt-in to additional
       | legal restrictions, and EU had an adequacy decision for companies
       | that did so.
       | 
       | Schrems II is the EU court case that struck down the Adequacy
       | Decision. The heart of the decision is the correct and accurate
       | observation US law enforcement can compel a company to hand over
       | data about an EU individual, and that EU individual has no
       | recourse. There have been a series of court cases since Schrems
       | II which expand upon the logical consequences of this ruling.
       | Short version is, not only is the adequacy decision gone, but
       | none of the other options in GDPR will work either. It is
       | literally not possible to adequately safeguard personal data in
       | the US, because there are no redress mechanisms to improper
       | access from US law enforcement.
       | 
       | There have been high-level talks about "Privacy Shield 2.0," and
       | there were some announcements from both US and EU government
       | agencies about a milestone in those talks. The linked article is
       | making it clear, correctly, that the observable substance of
       | those agreements extends no further than the name "Privacy Shield
       | 2.0" The details of how this agreement will work are important.
       | There is no evidence that such details _exist_ , even in the form
       | of smudged handwritten notes on the back of a used cocktail
       | napkin.
       | 
       | The EU and US have agreed that they would like it if something
       | called Privacy Shield 2.0 were to exist in the future. That's
       | great, I would like that as well. But we don't have one.
       | 
       | This article is content marketing from Simple Analytics. Their
       | marketing spin is that if you're deciding what Website Analytics
       | solution to buy, you should not pin your hopes on Google
       | Analytics being acceptable under GDPR in the near- or medium-term
       | future. As someone whose professional interests mean I pay a lot
       | of attention to both GDPR and Google Analytics, I think that
       | statement is accurate.
        
         | cj wrote:
         | Thanks for providing context.
         | 
         | > It is literally not possible to adequately safeguard personal
         | data in the US, because there are no redress mechanisms to
         | improper access from US law enforcement.
         | 
         | Isn't it possible by signing a DPA with the standard
         | contractual clauses? (Of course it's usefulness is limited
         | mostly to B2B use cases)
         | 
         | Assuming a DPA + SCCs are signed, I suppose the redress
         | mechanism would be a lawsuit.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | olliej wrote:
           | No. Because the US courts have repeatedly declared that non-
           | Americans have no due process rights. There is no contract or
           | agreement an US company can provide or commit to that
           | overrides US law.
           | 
           | US law is that data from non-Americans does not have 4th
           | amendment protection, and so any US entity is required to
           | hand over data on request. It may require an NSL, I really
           | can't recall, but an NSL is a rubber stamp that is no harder
           | to get than a subpoena.
           | 
           | There is also no facility for redress in the event that a US
           | entity illegally retrieves your data, largely because the
           | aforementioned belief that US law enforcement is literally
           | entitled to that data. In other words it is inherently
           | impossible for any "illegal" search or retrieval.
           | 
           | The US government has also ruled the old workaround of
           | keeping data of EU folk in the EU does not work: if the data
           | is under the control of a US entity, then the data is subject
           | to arbitrary demands from US law enforcement.
           | 
           | Even if you put those aside, the US doesn't provide its own
           | residents with the level of data protection ostensibly
           | guaranteed by the EU. That's unlikely to change as long as
           | google, Facebook, continue paying to stop any data protection
           | legislation.
        
           | bryanrasmussen wrote:
           | a lawsuit against the company that gave the data to the U.S
           | government when compelled? I think they want a redress action
           | that also allows you delete the data, but the U.S government
           | isn't going to do that I guess.
        
           | wbeckler wrote:
           | The Schrems II ruling was that DPA+SCCs are insufficient for
           | transferring data to a US company. You need to have
           | "supplementary measures" in addition to the SCCs.
        
         | kkfx wrote:
         | The issue is that proving the non-respect of those norms is
         | aleatory. Alphabet or Zoom might say "we do respect GDPR, we do
         | not record calls, perform behavioral analysis on them etc", IF
         | for some reason I discover a third party have something that
         | can only came from Zoom I might suspect a privacy violation and
         | so file a formal complaint, otherwise I'm almost powerless in
         | 99% of the case. Surely reverse engineering is not illegal,
         | good luck to do so for any services, including the giants like
         | Android, including their baseband etc.
         | 
         | Such laws can only work with mandatory FLOSS and open hardware
         | with verifiable builds. Only one absent and the norms are just
         | smoke. Oh BTW USA or EU actors does not change much, formally
         | the USA Patriot Act change things, but only formally because
         | the business model of an USA actor is the same of an EU one.
        
       | tims33 wrote:
       | Why not have this link to the Schrems article[0] rather than this
       | advertisement for the Simple Analytics product?
       | 
       | [0] https://noyb.eu/en/privacy-shield-20-first-reaction-max-
       | schr...
        
       | richwater wrote:
        
         | stevesearer wrote:
         | I routinely visit the same websites on a daily basis and don't
         | understand why I have to accept cookies to the same sites over
         | and over again.
         | 
         | Shouldn't they keep track of that?
        
           | MoSattler wrote:
           | Your browser might be blocking third party cookies.
        
           | Lariscus wrote:
           | Are you blocking cookies by default? Quite often your consent
           | is saved in a cookie. There is of course also the possibility
           | that the website operator is hoping that you get so annoyed
           | that you consent to tracking sooner or later.
        
         | turbinerneiter wrote:
         | It's not the EU who makes you do that, it's the companies
         | making the website.
         | 
         | They could not use cookies, they could respect DNT browser
         | setting, they could have not abused tracking technology, and
         | they couldmhave chosen to comply with the law in a user
         | friendly way, instead of user-hostile way.
         | 
         | They didn't. That's why now there is an imperfect law.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | JCWasmx86 wrote:
         | Without the urge of the companies to track everything they can,
         | you wouldn't have to deal with cookie banners. The only fault
         | the EU has is that the fines for companies are far, far too low
         | and the enforcement is too slow and rare
        
         | o_m wrote:
         | Don't be angry at the EU, be angry of the owners of the website
         | that makes it hard to say no to tracking.
        
         | Lariscus wrote:
         | The GDPR in no way requires cookie banners, that is the choice
         | of the website you visited. Cookies required for functionality
         | of a website do not require consent, privacy invading tracking
         | cookies on the other hand do.
        
         | olliej wrote:
         | No, those websites chose to make you do that.
         | 
         | They could stop selling your data to google, Facebook, etc
         | 
         | Or I guess you could blame the legislation that at least makes
         | it obvious that that's what they're doing?
        
         | Barrin92 wrote:
         | This is like blaming the government for making you look at
         | black lungs on cigarette packages. It's not the government
         | that's making you cough, they're just showing the result to
         | you.
        
         | MereInterest wrote:
         | Good news! It's not the EU at all. The websites you visit have
         | the following alternative options:
         | 
         | * Serve static content with no user-tracking.
         | 
         | * Serve per-user dynamic content, where
         | 
         | * Perform tracking that is essential to the service provided.
         | (e.g. Recording GPS coordinates are essential to the service
         | that Strava offers to users, so no explicit consent is
         | required. Recording GPS coordinates is not essential to the
         | service that Google, Facebook, or Amazon provide, so they must
         | have consent to collect GPS coordinates.)
         | 
         | So if a website is displaying a banner request to track you,
         | it's because that website has made a deliberate choice not to
         | use the other options available.
         | 
         | Not only that, but you have additional options as well.
         | 
         | * Hide each GDPR banner, such as using a custom filter in your
         | ad-blocker. Consent to be tracked must be explicit, and
         | ignoring/hiding a banner is not explicit consent.
         | 
         | * Click the "I reject cookies" button instead. The GDPR
         | requires that it be as easy to retract permission as it is to
         | accept. Since the website has an "I accept cookies" button that
         | only requires one click to complete, they must also have a "I
         | reject cookies" button.
        
           | Macha wrote:
           | > Click the "I reject cookies" button instead. The GDPR
           | requires that it be as easy to retract permission as it is to
           | accept. Since the website has an "I accept cookies" button
           | that only requires one click to complete, they must also have
           | a "I reject cookies" button.
           | 
           | As for when that'll be a reality, they are working on that:
           | https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/new-
           | cooki...
        
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       (page generated 2022-04-24 23:02 UTC)