“The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data” -The Economist in an article about the rise of a new economy called ‘Data’

With an increasing number of people attaching value to privacy and data control, it is the prerogative of the governing bodies to bring regulations into data protection and that is exactly what The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has enforced.

The GDPR was established in 1995 as a directive to protect EU citizens from privacy and data breaches. But, the world has progressed into an extremely data driven enterprise and the laws have to be in accordance with that. With that in mind, after four years of preparation and debate, the GDPR has been approved by the EU Parliament and will come into enforcement from the 25th of May 2018. It is designed to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, to protect and empower all EU citizens’ data privacy and to reshape the way organizations across the region approach data privacy.

This brings us to the question, what is personal data?

The GDPR defines personal data as the following:

“Any information related to a natural person or ‘Data Subject’ that can be used to directly or indirectly identify the person. It can be anything from a name, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer IP address”.

These are all the details that are provided by the consumers voluntarily which can be monetized in the form of advertising revenue / targeted marketing. And, professional networking sites are the holy grail of personal data source.

These are just some of the data points voluntarily shared by the subject

Unfortunately in today’s world of professional networking platforms, one side effect of privatized data is that you aren’t in full control of your professional history. But if it is your name, e-mail, past experiences and future goals, shouldn’t you be at the controlling end of the deal?