The GDPR, Europe’s new data protection law came into effect last week, it gives EU citizens many rights but firms doing business with or in Europe need to follow 99 new rules. Those rules are often unclear and full compliance is difficult. It’s actually said that only one person on earth was able to completely implement the GDPR, Chuck Norris (that’s a fact).
I’m Swiss (not part of the EU) and currently live in Beijing, but my company is doing business in Europe and China, thus I also have to comply with the GDPR. After wasting…, sorry spending a lot of time on implementing those rules, I decided to write some text about the subject. In this text, I would like to compare features and priorities of the GDPR with those of Chinese laws.
Focus on the individual vs. focus on the society: The GDPR focuses on the individual and gives people many rights, but companies need to pay the price. You will not see that with laws in China, the individual has not such a high priority there, what counts is the society as a whole. The question is, which way is better? The EU gives citizens hundreds of rights to protect them, but those rights come with a high price tag. A jungle of regulations is needed which then slow down development and cost a lot of money. At the end, those regulations could even break the economy, and I think a country (or continent) with no functioning economy will not be able guarantee its citizens many rights.
Focus on security vs. focus on (economic and technological) development: The GDPR focuses highly on security resp. protection (of private information). It achieves this with 99 (clever number) new rules, but these rules will surely slow down any development. The situation in China is different: People are eager to advance and willing to take (sometimes too high) risks. Many laws support innovation or economical development, but you will not see such high security standards. I think Europe should start to risk more again, because risking nothing at all leads to no development and no development is also risky.
Rigidity vs. flexibility: In Europe, authorities are often strictly bound by some laws and must follow those stubbornly; this rigidity then can end in rather awkward and costly situations. In China on the other hand, laws often are more flexible and compromises are possible, everyone benefits from this.
From zero to 100 in one day vs. introducing step-by-step: In China, such a law would be introduced step-by-step. The government would first start small, then observe the effect of the law and after that decide how to further develop it. The GDPR isn’t step-by-step, it often takes 100 steps at once. Fines for example will increase extremely fast, why not increase them slowly (and also carefully observe)? Maybe a lot of the panic would have been avoided.
Meddling in other countries affairs vs. respecting other countries sovereignty: A company that is completely located outside the EU but serves some EU customers, already needs to comply with the GDPR. Isn’t that strange? If someone from country A visits country B, shouldn’t he be subject to country B’s law? I think the EU starts to meddle in other countries affairs. Regarding this aspect, China is very different and respects other countries sovereignty (as long as those countries do the same). If you need a proof for that, simply look at the last 800 years of history.
A lot “bureacrazy” vs. focus on eliminating bureaucracy: The EU creates more and more laws, which always add more bureaucracy. Laws like the GDPR make even simple things complicated. In China the other hand, eliminating inefficient bureaucratic processes has a high priority (but without de-regulating). Regulating the economy can benefit everyone, but only if you do it right and don’t overburden the economy with countless unclear and inefficient rules.
Final word: For someone knowing Europe but seeing the fast development in China every day, the GDPR is rather a mystery. It seems to have weird priorities and no connection to reality. Europe’s economy is already falling behind but the continent has the highest safety standards in the world. So why create a law that introduces even higher standards but further slows down the economy and innovation? You can’t guarantee the well-being of your citizens just by creating hundreds of rights, you need a functioning economy for that.
