Denmark is banning Chromebooks in faculties after Helsingør municipality officers have been ordered to endure a data-risk evaluation relating to how Google processes private info.
Datatilsynet, Denmark’s information safety company, launched a verdict final week that said that Google’s cloud-based Workspace do not meet the European Union’s GDPR data-privacy rules. Why? The investigation found that Google transfers information from Europe-based servers to US servers, which clashes with GDPR’s safety and privateness requirements.
The ruling is at the moment particular to Helsingør; the municipality has till Aug. 3 to rid themselves, and their college students, of Chromebooks and Google Workspace. Nevertheless, because of the Datatilsynet report stating that there was a private information breach in 2020, the safety company famous that the ruling would most certainly apply to different municipalities sooner or later.
Why is that this occurring?
The principle trigger for this example is the now defunct EU-US Privateness Protect that managed how information was shared between the US and the EU. With no regulation at the moment in place, this leaves EU customers susceptible to the less-stringent information rules of the USA, that are much less involved with anonymizing private information.
Apparently sufficient, information transfers between the US and Europe have been thought-about unlawful since a earlier ruling, “the Schrems II case” in 2020, which nullified the present US-EU Privateness Protect settlement as a consequence of it not assembly the requirements of the GDPR. These bulletins and rulings observe a pattern of European nations, resembling Italy, France, and Austria, figuring out that web sites utilizing Google Analytics violated European data-privacy safety guidelines.
A Google spokesperson just lately informed TechCrunch the next:
“Faculties personal their very own information. We solely course of their information in accordance with our contracts with them. In Workspace for Schooling, college students’ information is rarely used for promoting or different industrial functions. Impartial organizations have audited our providers, and we hold our practices beneath fixed assessment to keep up the best attainable requirements of security and compliance.”
That is gobbledygook for “no hurt, no foul” and does not tackle the difficulty.
It is not simply Google
Just lately, Eire’s DPC (Information Safety Fee) seemed into how Meta, Fb’s guardian firm, has been transferring information between Europe and the US, which is presumably impacting WhatsApp and Instagram customers.
Whereas nations inside the EU battle for residents’ information safety, it leaves US residents to marvel how a lot of their private info is being mined.
Going ahead
As a tech reviewer, Chromebooks have all the time been much less engaging to me in comparison with PCs and Macs. While you add that many EU nations are placing their authorized foot on Google’s neck as a consequence of information safety points, what is the level of shopping for one?
Chrome OS gadgets are perfect for checking emails, watching YouTube, and diving into Google’s productiveness suite of apps (e.g., Docs, Sheets and Slides), nonetheless, you’ll be able to’t do any severe gaming, video enhancing nor photograph enhancing. As such, Google’s prevalent safety and privateness points additional weakens the case for buying a Chromebook.
Certain, Chromebooks are extra reasonably priced, however so was my second-hand automobile, which turned out to be completely ineffective and harmful to drive. Lastly, one of many largest faults with Chrome OS is the Google Play retailer, which is stuffed with malicious, malware-infested apps used for information mining, stealing private info, and cash.
Google should take a web page from Apple and tighten up its safety vulnerabilities earlier than shoppers bounce ship and search various working techniques. If you wish to know what you’ll be able to to guard your self, I recommend wanting into establishing a VPN, or perhaps even a double VPN, which considered one of our contributors just lately wrote about. Keep vigilant, my mates!
h/t TechCrunch
