Why the new US-EU agreement on data transfer is important
Marco Mayer, professor at the Luiss Master in Cyber security explains to the AGI why the preliminary agreement between the US and the EU on the transfer and processing of personal data is a good starting point, but requires a lot of diplomatic work on which Italy can play an important role
On March 25, Presidents Joe Biden and Ursula Von Der Leyen signed a preliminary agreement between the US and the EU on the transfer and processing of personal data .
A few hours earlier, the European Union reached a political agreement on new regulations on the digital market and digital services .
“The political agreements of recent days are a good starting point, but they still require a lot of diplomatic work between the two sides of the Atlantic because, as they say,“ the devil is hiding and in the details ”. Marco Mayer, professor at the Luiss Master in Cyber security and Cybersecurity Advisor to the Minister of the Interior in 2017/2018 explained this to Agi . “In the coming months – he said – the Italian Government (and the Farnesina in particular) will be able and must offer an effective and creative contribution for the development of the final texts and the application mechanisms of the agreement between the US and the EU.
As regards the exchange of information, Italy can, in fact, boast – like no other country – a thirty-year experience of bilateral cooperation with the United States in the fight against organized crime and corruption starting from the Pizza Connection, etc … It is enough here to recall one month after her death the role of Dr. Liliana Ferraro in the cooperation with the FBI and in particular her connection with the director of the FBI Louis Freeh "
In terms of market regulation, however, "it was the Prime Minister, Mario Draghi himself (in his capacity as President of the Financial Stability Board) on behalf of the G20 who defined the new regulation of" global systemically important banks "After the financial crisis of 2008" remembers Mayer.
In this case, what is at stake is not global financial stability, “but – warns the expert – the political future of contemporary democracies. In the next few years In the free world – starting from the United States – the oligopoly of five mega companies could, in fact, crack some of the fundamental principles of freedom that have emerged following four great political revolutions (English, American, French and Indian) ".
“Amazon, Google, Facebook (now Meta), Apple and Microsoft – explains Mayer – have, in fact, a growing power on too many levels. The most disturbing aspect is the segmented profiling of people (in particular of minors and children) in particular on the basis of the trade in a gray area of psychometric and behavioral data by the so-called data brokers ".
If on the marketing level, hidden advertising determines compulsive purchasing behaviors (for example the digital addiction to online slot machines) on the political level "the conditioning – he added – can distort free and fair elections as it was for example for the referendum on Brexit in the famous Cambridge Analytica case ".
While the disinformation initiatives on NO VAX and COVID by Russian broadcasters certainly do not represent a novelty or a surprise "the use for political purposes of both the major free-to-air social media and exchanges between data brokers on the dark web should be more carefully monitored ".
Finally, there is the more strictly economic aspect to consider. " Too often – Mayer specifies – towards startups and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises the attitude has been that of blackmail: either I buy you or I have you shut down. In fact, in the United States, Congress and the Senate have recently highlighted how the Big Tech oligarchy can curb innovation by moving the economy away from the principles of free and fair competition. In Europe, there has been awareness for a longer time that in the digital field the fundamental rules of the market are not respected either in terms of Antitrust or data protection ".
Compared to the European news in recent days, the first reaction came from Cupertino. The Apple spokesperson is particularly critical of the prediction of interoperability between platforms and said: "Governments and international agencies around the world have explicitly discouraged sideloading requirements, which would paralyze the privacy and security protections that users have. they wait ". The ban on “combining personal data for targeted advertising unless clearer consent is given by the user apparently worries Google's advertising planning. The message from Mountain View is, in fact, the following: “While we support many of the ambitions of the DMA (Digital Market ACT) regarding consumer choice and interoperability, we are concerned that some of these rules may reduce innovation and the choice available to Europeans ".
“We have entered – confirms Mayer – the final phase of an important political process for the future of all Western, African and Asian democracies. As happened in the field of anti-terrorism ( think of the G7 Ministers of the Interior Ischia 2017 under the Italian Presidency ) Bigh Tech must not be demonized, but rather it is necessary to establish cooperation channels on a clear basis. The difference from the past is that if the agreement between Biden and Von Der Layen is implemented quickly, Big Tech will no longer be able to take advantage of the political divisions between the United States and Europe as in the past, which not only in digital and ICT have characterized the phase. from 2003 to today after the invasion of the IRAQ ".
"The imperative for everyone – he concluded – is to never forget is that we live in a world divided between democratic and authoritarian regimes. To be credible, the criticism of the excessive power of big tech must be accompanied by the awareness that in many countries (China and Russia, first and foremost) where fundamental freedoms are denied, the digital revolution has had far worse political effects. It has in fact favored mass capillary technological surveillance as well as the diffusion of sophisticated disinformation campaigns in favor of the political-financial oligarchies in power ”.
Article published on agi.it
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/perche-e-importante-il-nuovo-accordo-usa-ue-sul-trasferimento-dati/ on Sat, 30 Apr 2022 05:41:12 +0000.