2014-12-31
【聯合報╱By MARK SCOTT╱馮克芸譯】
Where Privacy Is Now the Law
From Silicon Valley, American tech companies oversee ever-expanding global empires.
Google has a bigger slice of the online search market in Europe than it does at home . More than 80 percent of Facebook’s 1.3 billion users live outside the United States, with Brazil and India among the social network’s most important markets. And Apple now sells more iPhones and iPads in Shanghai and St. Petersburg than it does in San Diego.
美國科技公司從矽谷監管他們日益擴大的全球版圖。
谷歌在歐洲的網路搜尋市占率比在美國還高。社群網站臉書的13億用戶逾8成住在美國境外，首要市場包括巴西和印度。而蘋果iPhone及iPad在上海及聖彼得堡的銷量比美國聖地牙哥市還多。
The world’s seemingly insatiable appetite for all things tech has made many of these giants among the most profitable companies in the world. But selling these products has also placed them largely at odds with global privacy rules that go far beyond what American lawmakers demand at home.
The tech companies often rely on lengthy (frequently incomprehensible) consent forms and free speech rights to protect themselves against claims of misuse of their users’ online information. But that defense does not hold up in large parts of the world, including Malaysia, South Africa, Brazil, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Argentina.
世人對各種科技產品的需求似乎永無止境，使得許多科技業巨擘躋獲利在世上名列前茅。但銷售這些產品也讓這些公司與全球隱私法規格格不入，那些法規遠比美國國內要嚴。
科技公司多半仰賴冗長（且往往難懂）的同意書及言論自由權，保護自己不因濫用用戶的線上資料而挨告。但在世上許多地區這套防禦措施並不管用，包括馬來西亞、南非、巴西、新加坡、香港、日本及阿根廷。
The right to privacy is taken more seriously abroad, notably in Europe, where politicians are considering rules that would fine any company up to $125 million or 5 percent of its annual revenue if it flouted the region’s strict data protection rules.
And regulators from Paraguay to the Philippines are lifting passages — almost word for word — from Europe’s tough privacy laws .
“Europe’s data protection rules have become the default privacy settings for the world,” said Billy Hawkes, a former data protection regulator for Ireland .
美國以外國家把隱私權看得比較嚴重，尤其歐洲，政界正考慮訂頒新法規，對違反當地嚴格的資料保護法規的科技公司，最高罰款1億2500萬美元（約台幣39億5千萬元）或年營收的5%。
從巴拉圭到菲律賓，各國主管單位現在幾乎逐字照抄歐洲嚴格的隱私法。
曾任愛爾蘭資料保護管制官員的哈克斯說：「歐洲的資料保護法規已成為有關隱私權的全球預設模式。」
Facebook has repeatedly had to rewrit e its privacy policies to give its global users a greater say in how their online data is used.
“Facebook just took its U.S. privacy policy and rolled it out in Europe,” said Max Schrems, an Austrian lawyer who has filed a class-action lawsuit against the social network involving more than 25,000 users for violating the region’s data protection laws when it sent individuals’ personal data to the United States, where domestic intelligence agencies could gain access to the information. “They never wanted to adapt their privacy rules to anywhere outside America.”
臉書已多次改寫隱私權政策，針對如何使用用戶線上資料納入全球用戶的更多意見。
奧地利律師施倫姆斯說：「臉書原只是把它在美國的隱私權政策推行到歐洲。」施倫姆斯已就一件涉及2萬5千名用戶的案子對臉書提起集體訴訟，指其違反歐洲資料保護法，把用戶個資傳到美國，讓美國國內情報單位可以取用。「他們從不想調整自己的隱私法規以適應海外任何地區。」
Microsoft claims that its cloud computing services (which allow people to store documents and photos on the Internet) now comply with Europe’s tough data protection rules — the only American company so far to receive such approval.
微軟公司宣稱，該公司（讓人們把文件和照片儲存在網路上）的雲端運算服務，現在符合歐洲嚴格的資料保護法，微軟是目前唯一獲此認可的美國公司。
Google, meanwhile, is scrambling to comply with a recent European court ruling that allows anyone — whether in or out of the 28-member European Union — to ask that links to online information about themselves be removed from its global search results.
Although Google fought hard to block this so-called right to be forgotten, it lost the battle, and has scrubbed thousands of links from its search results to adhere to the European ruling. Advocates for the new standard are hoping to force the company to extend the practice across its entire global search business — and potentially to the United States.
同時，谷歌正忙著遵從歐洲法院最近的一項判決，即任何人皆可提出把個人線上資訊連結從谷歌搜尋結果中移除的要求，無論當事人是否住在有28個會員國的歐盟。
谷歌雖極力阻擋這種所謂的「被遺忘權」，還是輸了官司，且已遵照歐洲判決，從其搜尋結果中取消數以千計的連結。鼓吹這套新標準的人希望迫使谷歌把這項作法擴大到整個全球搜尋業務，可能也及於美國。
“Americans really do care about these issues,” said Gus Hosein, a senior fellow at Privacy International, a London- based consumer advocacy group . “But right now, they have very limited rights that they can exert over how their data is used.”
Across the globe, countries are looking toward Europe for cues on how best to protect their citizens’ privacy. When Brazil unveiled the country’s new Internet bill of rights, lawmakers demanded that tech companies obtain permission from users before sharing their data with online advertisers and marketers.
總部設在倫敦的消費者權益團體「國際隱私權」的資深研究員霍森說：「美國人的確很在乎這些議題，但在當下，對於他們的資料如何為人所用，美國人能行使的權利很有限。」
全球許多國家現在都向歐洲取經，以求找出最能保護國民隱私權的方法。巴西推出新的網路權益法時，國會議員要求科技公司在向線上廣告商及行銷業者分享用戶資料前，先取得用戶同意。
New rules in South Africa forbid sending people’s online information electronically to countries that do not replicate its stringent privacy laws .
In South Korea, people have the right to access their online information held by tech companies whenever they want.
For tech giants like Google and Facebook, the path ahead is clear. These companies may call Silicon Valley home, but they’re increasingly falling in step with international regulators.
南非的新法規禁止把民眾的線上資訊，以電子方式傳送到其他沒有類似南非那套嚴格隱私法的國家。
在南韓，民眾有權在任何時間，取得科技公司保存的、有關他們本人的線上資料。
對於谷歌、臉書這樣的科技巨擘而言，前途已定。這些公司或許可稱矽谷為家，卻日益遵從國際監理機關的步調。
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