Mass surveillance and manipulation
“Digitalisation, as carried out so far by American and Chinese companies, is based on mass collection and utilisation of personal data. On the one hand, this leads to mass surveillance and manipulation, to the detriment of individual creativity, while we particularly need these creative resources now that the climate crisis is confronting us with huge challenges.
Concentration of power and wealth
On the other hand, this results in the fact that certain private companies and state organisations accumulate more and more knowledge and power on account of their ever-growing treasure troves of data. State interference and market domination by certain companies result in difficulties for other companies that would like to use the potential of digitisation for their own purposes, including increasing their own sustainability.
The GDPR offers the power to change the situation
Thanks to the rights that every person in Europe benefits from under the GDPR, individuals can exercise control over the processing of their data. However, they cannot prevent it.
Fortunately, the GDPR gives organisations that initiate or commission data processing as “controllers” the means to change things for the better.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that organisations regularly forego these means because they are not familiar with the regulatory framework for digitisation.”
