David, Goliath, and Data Privacy Part II: Max Schrems

If you’re in the privacy industry, you know Max Schrems: Renowned privacy rights advocate and the David who took on Facebook’s Goliath to shine a light on the misuse of consumer data. But that’s just one facet of what he does. In this episode, Max talks to Arlo Gilbert about Facebook, Amazon, and Google, whether or not you can file a class action in Europe, and how somebody became so passionate about privacy that they ended up changing the world.

Max is an Austrian activist, lawyer, and author whose legal challenges alleging privacy law violations in Europe resulted in two landmark judgments (Schrems I and Schrems II) that help protect individuals’ personal data. Today, as the Founder and Chairman of noyb, Max and his team are committed to bridging the gap between privacy laws and corporate practices to strengthen protection of individuals’ personal data.

This is Part II of a two-part series. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify; instructions on how to do this are here.

Episode Highlights:

[00:30] - Will the US and EU Find Common Ground in Data Privacy?
[11:21] - Why American Companies Are Embracing GDPR
[17:04] - Tech Giants in Court
[21:38] - How EU’s New Law Causes Emotional Damage for Privacy Violations
[29:35] - Whose Job Is to Protect Your Data?

Quotes:

“The really interesting part when it comes to government surveillance is that we need convergence and a so-called "no-spy" agreement.”
“I often get asked in interviews like, What do you think Mark Zuckerberg thinks about? I have never thought about anything like the CEO of the company. It's not my way of thinking about stuff. It's more like, What does the privacy policy really say? What does the data flow say? Do they match or not? That's what our approach is, and that usually makes it quite nice and easy.”
“If you say all your data is on the dark web, how much money would you be willing to pay? Or, how much are you willing that all your data doesn't go to the NSA in the end? We could probably set a fair market price for these violations, but a lot of judges will have to figure that out in the next couple of years and will probably have some sweat going down to think about what that really is, especially if you then multiplied with 100 million people.”
“The digital compliance world has to think about how to build a system where, on average, people can trust us and be sure that the products and services we provide are generally up to the level that they expect from it and that we don't shift the responsibility to it.”

Episode Resources:

David, Goliath, and Data Privacy Part I: Max Schrems
Max Schrems on LinkedIn
noyb Website
Osano Website