Crypto exchange CoinTouch has closed because they didn't meet the new European GDPR requirements https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/cointouch-trading-platform-closes-door-due-to-gdpr-requirements/
Will this affect other exchanges too? How many exchanges will meet requirements? Are crypto businesses outside of Europe even aware of GDPR and do they realise that it might affect them if they have any clients IN Europe?
What do you think everyone, how much do you know about GDPR yourselves?
I learned about GDPR three weeks ago. My employer signed me up for a webinar facilitated by Freshdesk. Prior to that, I had no Idea what GDPR was.
General Data Protection Regulation is a legislation that has been four years in the making, and from the look of things, it gives an individual a measure of control over their data.
I am not too concerned about CoinTouch shutting down over their inability to become GDPR compliant, if anything, I think it signals their unprofessionalism towards personal information and lack of resources to put GDPR compliant measures in place to protect their customers.
Over the coming weeks--GDPR goes into full effect on May 25th, 2018--I expect more and shadier companies to close shop and move to localities with less stringent requirements for data protection, at the exclusion of the European market, and its customers.
All in all, CoinTouch closure is a good thing for consumers: one less company selling personal information for profit.
The thing is, none of this means that CoinTouch was doing anything illegal or shady, they might have been acting perfectly inline with existing data protection legislation. I have no idea. They have had (same as the rest of the world) more than 3 years to put the regulation into place before it is enacted, and as such you'd really think they'd have responded more effectively than just to throw in the towel...
As such, there might be more to the story than first meets the eye. And that article seems to be confusing GDPR with a host of unrelated law related to KYC and fraud... The only bit of that which GDPR would regulate is how the KYC audit trail is stored.
Sums up the general state of confusion though!
Sure, CoinTouch wasn't doing anything illegal but I would be remiss not to be wary of such a large company being unable to put GDPR compliance systems in place. It raises the question of what they have been doing with customer's data that would now warrant outright closure instead of putting GDPR compliant systems in place.
Their decision to shut down operations, rather than comply hints at shady practices.
Well, nothing is ever black and white in the world. The closure could have also been as a result of them weighing the pros and cons and then deciding that the liability which could come from non-compliance isn't worth the effort, and thus, decided to shut down.
I think the fear of new legislation of any kind, coupled with the possibility of large fines for non-compliance, is what drove them to close. There is a lot of information out there, a lot of it contradictory, so the lack of understanding is going to cause problems.
As you said yourself @Coin_Raven you only heard about this 3 weeks ago, I think this is the case for a lot of others too, although plans have been in place for GDPR for a couple of years. I'm a long way from being an expert on the subject myself!