GDPR and international students – a few implications

Hello and Good Day everyone! You’ve been warned before, eh? After our last serious blog topic, apparently the streak doesn’t stop there. This month, on the 25^th to be more precise, SOMETHING BIG is about to go down. You must’ve been getting THE EMAILS lately. Which emails? The ones saying ‘We’re updating our terms and conditions’. It’s because companies are being forced to do that by the new European law called GDPR. What is that how are GDPR and international students being affected by it? Let’s find out ?

What is it?

GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation is the European Union (EU) law number 679 passed in 2016 (14^th April) that basically ensures the privacy and protection of all data gathered by institutions (EU or non-EU) on people from the EU. Confused? I thought so. Let me give you an example to simplify it – you create a new account on Facebook, Twitter, etc., right? Now, Facebook and Twitter are obliged to keep your data that you provide to them safe and sound, else they are facing huuge penalties. I’m talking up to 4% of the total company revenue (or up to €20 million), whichever is higher!

Why now?

You surely must’ve heard about the hot Facebook – Cambridge Analytica scandal, when Facebook was illegally mining people’s data via their contracted third party Cambridge Analytica to gain better political insights to what people would vote in the recent presidential elections. Well this law comes as a countermeasure for that not to happen again. Since we’re living in the era of Digitization and Automatization and more and more businesses are currently operating solely online (e-businesses), the need for protecting electronic customer data was inevitable. Hence the law ?

Implications

Hmm. Maybe I should’ve used another word, as ‘Implications’ is kind of harsh and it does have a bad connotation. On the contrary though, this change is GOOD! If you are an international student who’s signed up on different social media, websites or study abroad portals for that matter you should know now that YOU now have more CONTROL of the data that you share with those e-companies; now YOU KNOW FOR SURE that it is FULLY-PROTECTED at all times; YOU HAVE THE RIGHT to OPT-OUT at any given moment in time.

What should you do?

First of all, you should be happy that this is happening and that the European Union is taking care of us Europeans!  Secondly, nothing much really. In the sense that you won’t really need to do anything… actively. Passively, yes, because you will have to accept the new terms and conditions regarding your data on the sites that you have signed up in order to continue using the services.

Our pledge

Here at The Study Abroad Portal we’ve always, are doing it and always will take good care of our students’ data, which is why we vow to never sell it, misplace it or use it for other purposes than HELPING YOU FIND YOUR DREAM STUDY ABROAD ADVENTURE!