I think this highlights the EU vs US perspective on Government nicely

In the EU you tend to trust your bureaucrats to make a "Fair and Just" application of the law

In the US we tend to expect our bureaucrats to be vindictive, corrupt, petty, and generally impose fines and penalties not based on the law but based on their personal feelings about the target of their "legal action"

Thus such open ended wording like you posted being classified as a "rule" scares the shit out of most Americans

> I think this highlights the EU vs US perspective on Government nicely

And the differences in the legal systems specifically. I think this is why a lot of HN commentators are finding the GDPR vague. In the US rule based regulations are the norm. For better or worse this tends to allow those with clever lawyers to search for loopholes. UK law is much more principle-based, which means trying to abuse the exact wording is not going to save you from a fine, and equally a technical-breach of wording is not going to get you prosecuted. It's not just the civil servants that we trust with this, it is the judges too.

In the US we have learned that trusting government normally does not work out well for the citizens of that nation.. you end up putting people in jail for Tweets, and Jokes ;)

Proportionate is subjective and means something different from person to person.