Under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
It has become necessary to implement infrastructure onto FIRSTALLIANCE.INFO that protects the data of all users internationally. FIRSTALLIANCE.INFO is accessed by an international audience, with many website users / data subjects being based in the European Union. This infrastructural adjustment is in accordance with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation. Wishing to protect the privacy of all FIRSTALLIANCE enthusiasts, FIRSTALLIANCE.INFO is now GDPR compliant.
The European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is designed to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, to protect and empower all European Union citizens data privacy, and to reshape the way organisations across the region approach data privacy.
The GDPR was approved and adopted by the EU Parliament in April 2016. The regulation will take effect after a two-year transition period and, unlike a Directive, it does not require any enabling legislation to be passed by government; meaning it will be in force by May 2018.
Personal data constitutes any information related to a natural person of ‘data subject’, that can be used directly or indirectly to identify the person. It can be anything from a name, photo, an email address, bank details, blogs, posts on social networking websites, medical information or computer IP address.
The GDPR does not only apply to organisations located within the EU, but it will also apply to organisations located outside of the EU, if they offer goods or services to, or monitor behaviour of, EU subjects. It applies to all websites and companies processing and holding the personal data of subjects residing in the European Union, regardless of the company’s location.
Non-compliance of organisations, will result in fines of up to 4% of annual global turnover for breaching GDPR or 20 million Euros. This is the maximum fine that can be imposed for the most serious infringements, such as not having sufficient consent to process data of data subjects, the passing on or selling of data to third party data collection agents, or not having data records in order.