Kopano and Experts Say GDPR Will Increase Gap EU-US Privacy Laws

November 16, 2017

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Category: Press release
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Delft, 16 November 2017 – The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new, Europe-wide law that will go into effect on May 25th, 2018 after a two-year grace period. Today, Collaboration Software Provider Kopano published a whitepaper by privacy expert Dan Shearer and an interview with ICT lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet, on the impact of GDPR on the US and EU Cloud.

Dan Shearer: “EU privacy laws are much stricter than US laws, and temporary fixes to bridge the gap is not looking credible. Ultimately, American companies must obey US law, not EU law.”

The whitepaper covers the collapse of privacy agreements between the US and EU over a period of years, explains why the Privacy Shield is collapsing, the EU’s Single Digital Market vision leading to the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive, and the need for EU-controllable and EU-based replacements to US cloud services.

Kopano also interviewed Arnoud Engelfriet, ICT lawyer, specialized in internet law. He explained the (potential) legal consequences of the GDPR for US cloud providers, their European counterparts and European companies who make use of US clouds.

Arnoud Engelfriet: “The GDPR is going to change a lot of things in Europe. Not only will it broaden the concept of personal data significantly, it will also introduce a lot of new compliance rules companies will have to take into account. I think it is important people are aware of this.”

“As a vendor of a self-hosted open source solution we get a lot of questions from people about data privacy and GDPR“, says Brian Joseph, CEO of Kopano. “We are therefore very happy that Dan and Arnoud were willing to give us their expert views on these topics and hope their knowledge will help companies become more aware of the issues surrounding GDPR and data privacy.”