The Chief Operating officer at PayPal, Bill Ready, has said that he isn’t worried about complying with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) or regulation in general from governments because PayPal is already operating in the highly regulated financial sector. He said in a recent interview with TheStreet.com that enlightened, well-crafted, regulations are good for consumers and that’s to be welcomed.
And in the interview he predicts that global laws similar to GDPR are likely to seen coming to other countries. His comments reflect growing consumer concern about online privacy, especially in the light of recent news regarding Facebook. He believes that PayPal is better placed than other Silicon Valley tech firms because they are used to complying to strict rules already.
I think GDPR in Europe gives a lens into what thoughtful privacy regulation could look like. I suspect it will be the case that governments around the world will want to think about how they regulate privacy. GDPR is one of the better examples of thoughtful regulation on privacy.
Regulators generally have the consumer’s best interest in mind. If you work closely with a regulator and you want to go do good things for your customer, your interest and the regulator’s interest often times are very closely aligned. It’s just a matter of coming together and working through those things.
– Bill Ready, PayPal COO
GDPR (EU) 2016/679 is a new EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union. It also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU. It comes into force on the 25th May this year and will impact any business or organisation that holds or stores personal information. To make sure that you’re ready and compliant for the new rules, we’ve written about it a few times here on Tamebay. But probably one of the best independent resources comes from the FSB.
3 Responses
They never end worried about any law and regulations in the first place
I don’t think that PayPal has any incentive to comply with the GDPR. They clearly prefer locking down accounts over risking them getting deleted by users, and they even state in their terms that they’re free to even use the money for their own means, without any obligation to return it to the rightful owner. This is insane. I for one can’t wait for the GDPR to hit them really hard where it hurts the most.