Addressing Consumer Privacy: Governments and Businesses Working Together - Essay Sample

Introduction

Violation of consumer rights and privacy remains one of the most critical challenges that contemporary society must address to ensure mutual coexistence (Vardi, 2019). Various business stakeholders, including private agencies and governments, are increasingly focusing on developing valid and reliable mechanisms to prevent this societal vice. For instance, regulation is one of the most critical approaches taken by contemporary governments worldwide to maintain consumer privacy online. However, further comparative analysis of the current regulatory framework in the United States still highlights the existence of multiple regulatory challenges that need to be addressed (Piovesan, 2019). As a result, this paper examined how government regulations help maintain consumer privacy, analyze whether current privacy protections are sufficient and whether the United States needs to adopt standards similar to those implemented by GDPR. The paper also examines whether businesses are complying with GDPR recommendations and whether they people can trust them to protect this data without regulatory oversight.

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How Government Regulations Help in Maintaining Consumer Privacy

According to Confessore (2018), government regulation entails formulating and enacting different laws and policies that help in providing various guidelines on businesses and people should operate. Hence, this approach plays a vital role in maintaining consumer privacy in different ways. First, government regulations stipulate various privacy rules that people and businesses must strictly follow to ensure operational sustainability. The failure to comply with these regulations usually culminate in different adverse consequences, including damaging business reputation, corporate image, and brand, lawsuits, fines, and permanent closure (Bowen et al., 2017). Secondly, regulations guide and promote ethical behavior among people, which, in turn, contributes to the maintenance of consumer privacy. For instance, regulations require people to cater to their colleagues' needs by ensuring that they identify and report all unethical and illegal practices that may lead to a violation of consumer privacy. As a result, the government can take appropriate punitive measures on such individuals, including jailing and even introducing predetermined fines (Vardi, 2019). Lastly, regulations hold businesses and entrepreneurs accountable to their stakeholders through the concept of corporate social responsibility, which, in turn, culminates in the maintenance of consumer privacy.

Assessing the Adequacy of the Current Privacy Protections

The United States provides the best example of various countries that are increasingly implementing a wide range of measures to protect the privacy of its consumers (Piovesan, 2019). Some of these measures include having federal-affiliated and independent privacy protection agencies, formulation and enactment of laws, and taking punitive measures to punish offenders. For example, the Privacy Act of 1974 plays a vital role in protecting personal information held by the United States federal government through the prevention of unauthorized disclosures (Davis, 2018). People also have the right to conduct comprehensive reviews of such information, get updates on any typical disclosures, and request appropriate disclosures. However, these current privacy protections appear inadequate when considering the continuous technological advances that are increasingly putting information stored on various platforms, including online, at risk of exposure and disclosure. As a result, the United States federal government needs to conduct comprehensive research to understand the evolving loopholes through which hackers and other online fraudsters access information and develop counterstrategies (Piovesan, 2019). Failing to undertake this approach can lead to far-reaching consequences, including data breaches that culminate in the exposure of private information, data loss, and financial loss.

Assessing whether the United States Should Adopt Standards Similar To Implemented By GDPR

A detailed analysis of the current United States preparedness in handling people and private business information shows various loopholes that the country needs to address (Confessore, 2018). As a result, it is recommendable for the United States to adopt standards similar to those undertaken by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to attain sustainability. GDPR provides seven critical principles that play a vital role in guiding the lawful processing of personal information (Chasinov, 2018). As a result, the United States strategic decision to adopt these standards similar to those of GDPR will ensure maximum protection and sustainability of privacy across the country with relation to these critical principles, which include gathering, arrangement, organization, storage, change, consultation, utilization, communication, integration, and destruction.

Assessing whether Businesses are Complying with the above Regulations

A detailed analysis of numerous businesses operating across Europe revealed that most of them are increasingly complying with GDPR (Chasinov, 2018). For instance, business leaders often ensure that they receive consent from subjects before processing their data. Also, these businesses usually comply with the obligations stipulated by their data controllers and perform every task in the public interest and official authority of the owner (Rossov, 2018). However, advances in technology present a critical challenge to this compliance because developments such as the internet provide fraudsters with sophisticated techniques to gain unauthorized access to private data.

Assessing whether it is Possible to Trust Businesses to Protect This Data without Regulatory Oversight

It is challenging to trust businesses to protect private data from various stakeholders, including customers who consume their products and utilize their services (Chasinov, 2018). Many companies tend to have self-interests and may eventually turn to personal data as a strategic approach for meeting their goals, especially when it comes to increasing their revenues. Businesses may disclose consumer privacy and expose their information to third parties to gain more profits. For instance, Cambridge Analytica Ltd, a British-based political consulting firm responsible for the combination of misappropriation of digital assets alongside other activities, such as data analysis, brokerage, and mining, harvested Facebook user’s data without consent in 2018 (Confessore, 2018). This mischief led to remarkable consequences, including fines, lawsuits, and damaged reputations that culminated in the closure of Cambridge Analytica.

Conclusion

Protecting consumers’ privacy is a critical element in the success of contemporary organizations. However, many businesses find it difficult to protect the personal data of their stakeholders, including employees, customers, and suppliers, due to having self-interests, including the push to increase their profitability. As a result, it is increasingly becoming crucial for modern business managers across the United States to adopt the GDPR principles to attain operational sustainability, as discussed in this paper.

References

Bowen, S., Moon, W., & Kim, J. K. (2017). Ethics in Financial Communication and Investor Relations. Research Gate, 1(1), 72-86. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319999425_Ethics_in_Financial_Communication_and_Investor_Relations.

Chasinov, S. (2018 August). What is the general data protection regulation and should you care? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2018/08/10/what-is-the-general-data-protection-regulation-and-should-you-care/#3ff5fcfc408b.

Confessore, N. (2018 April). Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The scandal and the fallout so far. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-scandal-fallout.html.

Davis, M. (2018 October). Government regulations: Do they help businesses? Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/11/government-regulations.asp.

Piovesan, C. (2019 April). How privacy laws are changing to protect personal information. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/04/05/how-privacy-laws-are-changing-to-protect-personal-information/#3c326971753d.

Rossov, A. (2018 May).The birth of GDPR: what is it and what you need to know. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewrossow/2018/05/25/the-birth-of-gdpr-what-is-it-and-what-you-need-to-know/#5835ee6555e5.

Vardi, M. (2019). Are we having an ethical crisis in computing? Communications of the ACM, 62(1), 1-2. Retrieved from: http://cs.brown.edu/courses/csci1800/sources/2019_01_CACM_AreWeHavingAnEthicalCrisisInComputing_Vardi.pdf.