The simplest way to comply is to not obtain and store personally identifiable information at all. Luckily this is also the cheapest. So I don't really buy that you "cant afford to do it right".
If you want to obtain and store personally identifiable information, then you have to mange it properly, just like selling food, medicine, financial services etc. need to follow certain regulation.
Note that all the competitors in the space will have to follow the same regulation, so it is not like it put you at a disadvantage.
I'm not sure if we have passed the line of too many regulations, but I know it's out there.
Two things occur to me here.
1) it's a cost of doing business. Costs of doing business change over time. Step changes as a result of regulation are typically introduced with windows to allow businesses time to respond. If you can't reasonably cover the cost of the change then...capitalism. You will fail and someone else will succeed. No one is guaranteed a profit.
2) Sounds like a business opportunity? GDPR/Privacy as a Service. e.g. https://privaon.com/ (first search hit).
> here should be some exceptions to it for small companies
This would effectively become a get out of jail for companies that want to outsource their (lack of) privacy with sufficient arms-length plausible deniability.
Except that foreign companies won't have this same limitation. The end result is that all of your online services will be provided by foreign companies, which ironically is already the case in the EU.
A foreign company that's beyond the jurisdiction of the EU can abuse GDPR as much as they want. If they get caught then they'll just lose their business. The EU can't actually fine them, but that same company likely outcompeted EU companies for years.
>This would effectively become a get out of jail for companies that want to outsource their (lack of) privacy with sufficient arms-length plausible deniability.
They can do the same thing with foreign companies though. If you can set up a system where you would use your small companies to escape regulation, then the same can be done with companies run by foreigners.
>2) Sounds like a business opportunity? GDPR/Privacy as a Service. e.g. https://privaon.com/ (first search hit).
And said business opportunity is additional inefficiency on businesses in the EU that their global competitors don't have to follow.
The EU can't force a foreign company to pay, just like China can't force an American company to pay. Or am I mistaken and there's some international agreement that allows the EU to force them to pay up?
The point I'm trying to make is that if you have European customers, then the GDPR applies. Therefore, "foreign companies" competing for EU customers, definitely do have this limitation. Fines have been issued for companies that don't comply, and the sizes vary immensely (e.g. over 200 million euro for British Airways down to 118 euros (not millions, 118) for the Data Protection Authority of Saarland).
Or do I have it wrong and that there is an enforcement mechanism that can make a Chinese company do things the EU says?
I think there should be some exceptions to it for small companies based on the impact of the PII. Eg if the company handles email addresses or first names then that should be far less strict than if a company handles medical information, home addresses or credit card information.
On the other side, we should have audits in companies to see how the personal data is handled. Particularly in ones that deal with sensitive information.