What is GDPR? EU's new data regulation law may choke tech giants

The EU’s new data regulation is slated to come into effect this week on May 25. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) promises more power to individuals and puts companies with a large pool of user data under the scanner.

This means that with the new regulation coming into force, individuals can now demand companies to reveal or delete their personal data.

The law will replace the 1995 Data Protection Directive and will finally be put to practice after seven years of debate. 

The GDPR will primarily have companies under its purview, firms of all kinds ranging from technology, banking, to advertising among others. The lot that is likely to bear the most brunt includes companies that primarily deal with acquiring and exploiting large-scale consumer data.

Companies will now need to practice utmost transparency while dealing with consumer data. Consent will have paramount significance, without consumer consent it will now be difficult for companies to process an individual's personal information. 

The GDPR rollout, this Friday, will mean that users will have the power to hold companies accountable for data breach like never before. Tech giants will now be pressured into changing policies and ushering in new measures that would provide more transparency with respect to the usage and processing of user information that they collect. 

Facebook, for instance, recently introduced tools that let its users manage, control, edit, review, download and delete information that is shared on/with Facebook as well as with third-party entities. 

GDPR has ambitious goals to achieve, whether or not it will work to avoid events like the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica episode is for all of us to see. The new regulation will have companies on their toes, cautious like never before as they face the risk of paying as much as 4% of their global turnover as a fine for violating the regulation.