Depressing as this is [LWN.net]

Depressing as this is

Posted Dec 14, 2005 20:52 UTC (Wed) by epeeist (guest, #1743)
Parent article: EU adopts data retention

I have just been sold off (sorry, outsourced) from a large UK bank. While respondents are rightly concerned about the data that is scheduled to be collected here attention ought to be paid to the information that is collected on you by large corporates.

Did you buy something on your credit card, purchase something from a supermarket, travel by plane? All of this information gets logged and stored to be analysed and used. Did you buy some nappies (diapers), expect the supermarket to be targeting you for children's school clothes a few years down the line. Did you buy travellers cheques from your bank, expect an approach on travel insurance.

And none of this is regulated. At least with this data there is a small chance we could get the parliament to change it.

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Depressing as this is

Posted Dec 15, 2005 16:43 UTC (Thu) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

The irony about all of this is that data collected by corporates can't be just sold to anyone like in the US. In europe citizen's do own have rights over data about themselves. The difference here is that it wasn't required to be collected or stored before this (that's why it's a data retention directive).

So now the corporates are required to store this info for two years and law enforcement can get at it, but no-one else. Great. I wonder if all the member countries will actually implement this, that's always the other half of the battle...