Sept. 8, 2019
Blog
Experience shows that in the digital the legal technique of consent is not protective enough.
If only because a simplest technology neutralizes the link that should exist between the "consent" of the user and the "free will" of the latter: the consent of the user only protects the latter to the extent that this one can in Law and in fact to say "no.
I. THE EXPERIENCE
For example I found on my Facebook New an access to an unknown web site which puts online an article on "the rights of trees" ...
I go. In accordance with the European Regulation (GDPR) transposed into French legal system, the site informs that there is possibility for the user to accept or refuse the use of their personal data for the benefit of "partners".
If they continue reading, the user is supposed to accept everything, but they can click to "customize".
I click: there I find two options: "accept everything" or "reject everything". But the "reject all" option is disabled. It is only possible to click on the "accept all" option.
I go. In accordance with the European Regulation (GDPR) transposed into French legal system, the site informs that there is possibility for the user to accept or refuse the use of their personal data for the benefit of "partners".
If they continue reading, the user is supposed to accept everything, but they can click to "customize".
I click: there I find two options: "accept everything" or "reject everything". But the "reject all" option is disabled. It is only possible to click on the "accept all" option.
It is also possible, because the law obliges, to consult the list of the partners of this website: I click and find a list of unknown companies, with foreign denominations, which without doubt once will collect my personal data (and those of my contacts) , having their own head office outside the European Union.
It is stated in a text, which can not be copied, that these "partners" can use my data without my consent and for purposes that they do not have to inform me. But, again, these things I can "refuse everything". Here again the "reject all" mention exists but the fonctionality is not active, while the mention "accept all" is an active fonctionality.
It is stated in a text, which can not be copied, that these "partners" can use my data without my consent and for purposes that they do not have to inform me. But, again, these things I can "refuse everything". Here again the "reject all" mention exists but the fonctionality is not active, while the mention "accept all" is an active fonctionality.
As I can not refuse (since it's disabled), and as 99% of Internet users have never clicked on the first two buttons, all their data has been fed into the data market that allows the targeting of products that spill out in the digital space, to their detriment and that of their contact.
While believing to read a free article on the "right of the trees".
At the end, I do not read this article, since I did not click on the only active buttons: "accept everything".
While believing to read a free article on the "right of the trees".
At the end, I do not read this article, since I did not click on the only active buttons: "accept everything".
In more than 50% of cases, the "reject all" or "customize" options are only images but are not active. And data absorption is also about contacts.
In exchange for a whimsical article about trees and their rights, or creams to be always young, or celebrities who change spouses, or about so-called tests to find what king or queen you should be if the all recognized all your merits, etc.
Proposed on the digital news feed by unknown sites; in partnership with foreign companies that you will never reach.
And mass-viewed by Internet users who are also told that "consent" is the proven solution for effective protection ....
While these are just panels hastily built by new Potemkins ...
In exchange for a whimsical article about trees and their rights, or creams to be always young, or celebrities who change spouses, or about so-called tests to find what king or queen you should be if the all recognized all your merits, etc.
Proposed on the digital news feed by unknown sites; in partnership with foreign companies that you will never reach.
And mass-viewed by Internet users who are also told that "consent" is the proven solution for effective protection ....
While these are just panels hastily built by new Potemkins ...
II. WHAT TO DO ?
1. Not be satisfied with "consent" from the moment that it is a mechanism that may not be the expression of a free will: how could it be if the option "to refuse" is not active?
2. The link between will and consent must therefore be "presumed" only in a simple presumption and in a non-irrefutable way, because we must refuse to live in a dehumanized society, operating on "mechanical consents", to which the digital does not lead necessarily.
3. Entrust by the Compliance Law to the "crucial digital operators" (in the case of Facebook thanks to which these proposals for free reading are made on the thread of news of the Net surfers) the care to verify in Ex Ante the effectiveness of the link between Will and Consent: Here and concretely the possibility for the user to read while refusing the capture of all its data (for the benefit of operators who do not even have the concrete obligation to give the information of the use that will be made of these personal data).
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