This is the second of four posts about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) according to a proposed scheme for inspecting the Regulation, which starts by examining its context, motivations, and goals. In the first post, we saw that the GDPR protects natural persons concerning the processing of personal data, which is considered by the European Union (EU) a fundamental right that every EU citizen has. The Regulation is about establishing enforced standards for improving security and privacy mechanisms associated with the collection and use of personal data.

Now it is time to move to the second layer of understanding of the GDPR by discussing highlights of its terminology and basic definitions. Our goal is to go beyond a dictionary-style of terms and definitions in this post. Instead, the building blocks of the Regulation’s terminology will be presented within a narrative that naturally continues the initial discussion about context, motivations, and goals.

Organization

When we look at the GDPR, we see some terms repeating more frequently than others, and we see many terms being defined in terms of fundamental ones. We refer to these terms as the main objects. These main objects are associated with main actions via a main tool, which is accessed or somehow explored by main actors. We will also single out what we describe as a main event. We will see that these labels are all related, directly or indirectly, to data. Therefore we will also discuss the main types of data covered by the Regulation. The pattern “the main _____” indicates that although there are other elements in each of these categories, the ones discussed in this post are clearly the most representative in the Regulation.

The Main Objects

When reading the GDPR, it is clear what the main actors of the Regulation are. We will talk about them later in this post. We will first look at the highlights within the actors, which we refer to here as the main objects: natural person and personal data.

A natural person or data subject is anyone that can be directly or indirectly associated with an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, email, or factors related to the identity of a person, including physical, physiological, genetic, economic, cultural, or social. All the data that can lead to identifying a natural person is referred to as personal data.

The Main Actions

The main objects are the foundation for the remainder of the discussion in this post. Virtually everything in the Regulation is related to a natural person, personal data, or one of their derivatives. We refer to the portion of the Regulation that covers how to appropriately interact with the main objects as the main actions.

Personal data can be collected, generated, structured, adapted, consulted, organized, transmitted, altered, stored, and deleted. Whether or not by automated means, any of these actions or operations is a form of data processing. Personal data can be processed in many ways to achieve many purposes. To prevent unauthorized use of personal data, a restriction of processing is invoked, which consists of collecting and marking data to limit its processing in the future, according to some well-defined scope.

The automated processing of personal data to analyze or predict aspects of a natural person associated with their performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, behavior, among others, is known as profiling. Sometimes personal data can be organized and processed so that it is no longer attributed to a natural person without additional information, often kept separately and subject to administrative measures that ensure that it is not used for identifying a natural person. This is referred to as pseudonymization.

Consent is a freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous declaration of the data subject’s wishes concerning collecting and processing their personal data. This can be done by a complete and formal statement or any explicit affirmative action of their understanding and agreement of the access and processing of their personal data.

The Main Tool

There are many tools associated with the GDPR in some capacity. But one tool stands out by itself for its generality and central role in the Regulation: a filing system.
Personal data is typically located in what is known as a filing system, which can be described as any structured set of personal data, whether centralized, decentralized or dispersed in terms of functional or geographical criteria.

The Main Actors

Some particular actors in the GDPR can be generally described as an entity, that is, a natural or legal person, public authority, agency, or any other body. In this sense, the GDPR discusses the attributes and responsibilities of the following entities: controller, processor, recipient, and third party.

A controller is an entity that determines the purposes and means of processing personal data. The controller can act either alone or jointly for ruling over what type of data can be used, how it can be used, via what means, and for what purposes. Suppose the purposes and means of personal data processing are determined by Union or Member State law, in which case the controller will also be provided by Union or Member State law. An entity that processes personal data on behalf of the controller is a processor.

When a controller and/or a processor is/are directly involved in more than one Member State, the main establishment refers to the place of its central administration in the Union.

A recipient is an entity that receives personal data, regardless if the recipient is a third party or not. Whenever the entity receiving data is a public authority (according to specific criteria of particular inquiry), that entity may not be referred to as a recipient.

A third party is an entity that is not the data subject, controller, processor, or any other person authorized to process data under the authority of the controller.

A representative is a natural or legal person designated by the controller or processor to represent the controller or processor concerning their obligations under the Regulation. An enterprise is a natural or legal person engaged in economic activity.

The Main Event

Similar to the notion of highlighting a single tool while acknowledging the existence of several tools in the GDPR, we also single out an event in the Regulation due to its criticality (and it is not a good one): a personal data breach.
A personal data breach refers to a security incident that leads to accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure of (or access to) personal data access and/or processing.

The Main Types of Data

Personal data related to a natural person’s inherited or acquired genetic characteristics are called genetic data. This type of data can provide unique information about a person’s physiology or health, typically obtained via examining biological samples from that natural person.

When personal data is more specifically related to physical or mental health, it is referred to as data concerning health, including healthcare services. This type of data can reveal information about a person’s health status.
When personal data is associated with specific technical processing relating to physical, physiological, or behavioral characteristics, it is called biometric data. Biometric data is typically used to confirm the identification of a natural person, which can be done by inspecting fingerprints, facial characteristics, body movement, among many other examples.

The Main Concepts

In the subject-matter and objects of the GDPR, it is clear that the Regulation establishes rules to protect natural persons with respect to their rights and freedoms, including freedom of movement of personal data, which can many times and for many reasons, undergo the process of pseudonymisation that we mentioned before, that is, the processing of personal data is performed in such a way that the personal data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional information. Rights also include the right of privacy, data protection, data portability, erasure (the right of being forgotten), and the restriction of data processing.

The rules in the Regulation determine that personal data can only be accessed with consent, which must be freely given, specified, unambiguous, assessed, and informed. Consent also can be withdrawn. 

Overall, rules are defined to enforce security and privacy of processing personal data, which must be accurate, lawful, fair, and transparent, have limited purpose, and limited storage, ensure integrity and confidentiality, and involve data minimization. Rules also serve to regulate controllers, which must be accountable. Figure 1 provides visualization of how some of the main concepts in the GDPR are related to each other.

Summary

There are many terms, concepts, and definitions in the GDPR and they are all connected somehow. The GDPR can be described as a set of rules for protecting natural persons and their personal data in a variety of scenarios and objectives for the protection of their rights, including the right of privacy. Although there is clearly much more that can be said about terminology and definitions in the GDPR, hopefully this post can contribute for a better appreciation of the official main text of the Regulation and related materials. 

David William Silva, PhD

Senior Research Scientist at Symetrix & Algemetric

IDPro Member, CIDPRO

About the Author

David William Silva is a Senior Research Scientist at Symetrix Corporation and Algemetric and is responsible for the research and development of innovative products related to security, privacy, and efficient computation powered by applied mathematics. David started his career as a Software Engineer focused on web services and agile software development, which led him to be involved with several projects from startups to government and large corporations. After 17 years of conducting R&D in Brazil, David moved to the US to engage in scientific research applied to a global industry of security and privacy, which has been his focus for the past seven years.

The post GDPR Part 2: Terminology and Basic Definitions appeared first on IDPro.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is considered the most comprehensive security and privacy law worldwide. The GDPR was drafted and passed by the European Union (EU) and enforced obligations onto organizations anywhere on Earth. These organizations target or collect data somehow associated with the people in the EU.

The full text of the GDPR is organized in 99 articles across 11 chapters and 88 pages. It is clearly a substantial amount of information that would not be possible to be exhaustively covered in a single blog post.

You certainly read and/or heard about GDPR many times in the past few years. In one way or another, the chances that the GDPR and related subjects have been brought to your attention are high. But even if you have never heard about the GDPR (although unlikely), I would like to provide a closer look at what is considered the world’s strictest security and privacy law. For that, I propose a simple technique I use when approaching any new subject, which consists of a representation of four layers of understanding, as shown in the figure below.

Our first step is to understand the context in which the GDPR came on the scene, the motivations, and its goals. This first layer of understanding is typically the minimum required to get the conversation started around any given subject. Next, we examine terminology and basic definitions. 

Getting into the second layer of understanding equips one to read and retain information from documents related to the topics at hand, which would be cumbersome without an established foundation of terms, acronyms, and definitions. 

The third layer is about examples and applications. In other words, it is about understanding terms and definitions in action in specific scenarios. Understanding how the building blocks of a subject under consideration relate to each other, how they are activated, and/or how they impact any given sequence of ideas or actions is paramount for solidifying the practical applications of the information gathered thus far. 

The fourth layer refers to observing arbitrary events and identifying the notions associated with the previous layers, relating actors and their roles, and classifying them according to terms and definitions in the second layer. It also involves applying critical thinking to what could be “gray areas” in the fundamentals of the referred subject and being able to propose new practical ideas, measures, and methods that are strongly aligned with the guiding principles of that particular subject. According to this simple 4-layer scheme, understanding all layers well means a good overview of the referred topic.

Next, we will take a quick look at some of the context, motivations, and goals of the GDPR.

Context

In November 1950, in Rome, Italy, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms took place. Better known as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), it established the first instrument to enforce some of the rights stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ECHR was adopted by the Council of Europe to guard fundamental freedoms and human rights of the people in Europe. The original text signed in 1950 took effect on September 3, 1953, and amended its original version by 11 additional protocols. The official original text is available online.

Despite the date, this initiative from over 70 years ago is considered “the most advanced and successful international experiment in the field to date.” A part of the 1950 ECHR was a profound discussion on the right to privacy. The debate around privacy had to be adjusted to the advances in society and technology to the point that in 1995, the EU passed the Data Protection Directive (DPD), officially known as Directive 95/46/EC, establishing a minimum set of data security and privacy standards, enough to enable each member state to execute their own law implementation. In 2011, after a series of incidents involving personal data privacy violations, the EU recognized the need for a more comprehensive approach to personal data protection. Since 1995, the DPD has been updated to address new issues and needs.

The fact that each member state had its own way of implementing laws to protect the security and privacy of personal data worked until a certain point. In 2012, the European Commission submitted a draft proposal for substantial reform of the data protection rules in the EU. On December 15, 2015, the European Parliament, in conjunction with the Council and Commission, agreed upon what was called the new data protection rules, the EU General Data Protection Regulation. The final text of the GDPR was approved on April 14, 2016.

Motivations

The underlying concept of the right to privacy is that “everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.” This was the driving notion that led the EU to ensure the right to personal data protection via legislation.

There was also a hope that an EU-wide law would solve several problems directly related to the fragmentation and somewhat independence of member state members in enforcing data security and privacy laws. The idea was to facilitate cooperation fighting crimes and any form of violation against the right to privacy.

Therefore, the GDPR supersedes the DPD, building on top of crucial components of the DPD while adding more specific requirements concerning data protection. The GDPR adds more rigorous enforcement of security and privacy laws with harsh penalties and substantial fines.

Goals

The main goal of the GDPR is to create and enforce standards for data protection legislation applied to all EU members and those somehow in connection to data associated with EU citizens. The GDPR also aims to equip EU residents to be known and understand their right to privacy, the resources available to them, where to look for help and any kind of support, and what to expect from organizations requesting any form or volume of personal data.

The GDPR establishes specific rules for accessing and processing personal data, together with responsibilities and penalties for those who violate any aspect of data protection under the Regulation.

When examining the full-text of the GDPR, it is crystal clear that the Regulation is all about protecting people, their privacy, their right to privacy, their right to own and protect their data, to choose what can be shared and with who, in which conditions, for how long, and to which extent.

Summary

The cornerstone of the GDPR is the protection of natural persons concerning the processing of personal data, which is referred to as a fundamental right that everyone in the EU has. Protecting data is just one direct consequence of protecting the privacy of the individual, which can be violated through unlawful, unsolicited, or incorrect manipulation of personal data. The GDPR addresses modern concerns with data privacy, but its principles go back to 1950. Since then, the EU has been actively improving their security and privacy mechanisms of personal data from individual execution of privacy-preserving measures to a now unified, EU-wide security and privacy standards and laws to enforce, by all means necessary, the protection of personal data. As anticipated, we are just scratching the surface of GDPR, as we just entered the first layer of understanding the Regulation, according to our proposed simple scheme for organizing information. In the second part of this series, we will look at significant highlights of terminology and basic definitions and how they relate to each other in the grand scheme of all things GDPR.

David William Silva, PhD

Senior Research Scientist at Symetrix & Algemetric

IDPro Member, CIDPRO

About the Author

David William Silva is a Senior Research Scientist at Symetrix Corporation and Algemetric and is responsible for the research and development of innovative products related to security, privacy, and efficient computation powered by applied mathematics. David started his career as a Software Engineer focused on web services and agile software development, which led him to be involved with several projects from startups to government and large corporations. After 17 years of conducting R&D in Brazil, David moved to the US to engage in scientific research applied to a global industry of security and privacy, which has been his focus for the past seven years.

The post GDPR Part 1: Context, Motivations, and Goals appeared first on IDPro.