Forget all the stuff out there that says the GDPR protects EU citizens. This is a question of jurisdiction and enforcement. Say I run a blog under a business registered in the US funded by advertisers in the US. A EU citizen that comments on posts issues a GDPR request that I ignore. Their government fines me. I tell them to get bent, I am out of their jurisdiction. What can they do at that point?
This is a good article on whether non-EU websites have to obey the GDPR. It boils down to two criteria:
If your business is offering goods or services, irrespective of whether a payment of the data subject is required, to such data subjects in the EU
or
If your business monitors the behavior of EU citizens and their behavior takes place within the union.
The latter includes use of advertising cookies, location tracking, etc.
If neither of those apply, you can probably ignore the GDPR.
That is an interesting article, but it doesn’t answer the question of jurisdiction because it refers to the GDPR itself. I.e. it doesn’t answer whether an EU country itself actually has the authority to enforce it on a US citizen. The US could pass a law that says a website operator must eat a dog turd every time anyone, anywhere, a website runs an ad that a US person sees. Say someone in Romania runs a site with ads and the US government wants to enforce this. The law could even state that it applies anywhere in the world, but that doesn’t make it so because the US does not have jurisdiction everywhere in the world. The Romanian government will rightly refuse to make their citizen eat the dog turd.
So the spirit of my question is, where is the stick to actually enforce anything on a US entity operating in the US under the GDPR? There is an agreement via an EO. Is there anything else in US law that could be used to enforce this if a US citizen refused an EU country trying to enforce the GDPR in the US? Using the text of it is NA because the EU can only do things that apply to EU countries and their citizens.
For those that aren’t familiar with how the US gov functions, an EO is not even remotely close to a treaty, which has the same supremacy as our constitution. All an EO does is tell federal employees or federal executive agencies what to do. Our president could issue an EO telling everyone in the US to wear yellow hats when not in a building and for the FBI to arrest anybody with a yellow hat. Those arrested would have charges dropped the second it reaches the court because such a law does not exist and it is outside the scope of power of the president. EOs can only act within already existing laws.
Your advertisers who most likely sell stuff to EU people will become party to your noncompliance, and will be unable to use the data you sell them, and may cut ties for liability reasons.
Also some jurisdictions in the EU reserve the right to submit incassos directly to the SWIFT system, but that’s mostly used for eg. speeding tickets.
For example if you come here to my country from the US with your car and get a speeding ticket that you refuse to pay, my government will just take it out of your US bank account unilaterally. GDPR fines are criminal fines just as speeding tickets are.
Realistically though, if you don’t have massive wealth to bribe people in the US, the US authority will just enforce the fine on you.
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I am a US citizen, I know how our laws are made, and find the explanation a little condescending, but this is the best answer so far that there is a treaty about it. I couldn’t find that anywhere. Thanks.
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Based on your replies to other comments, it seems you don’t see how the GDPR, or GDPR fines, could have any effect on US companies.
https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
Sort the list by fines, and you find US companies paying whopping amounts. Many affect their EU presence (such as Meta Platforms Ireland Limited), but others don’t (such as Meta Platforms, Inc.).
Ask yourself if these giants were just too nice to give in, or if they were too poor to hire a lawyer.
If you think both options are unrealistic, maybe the GDPR does have an effect even on US companies.
I think the largest assumption you are making is that the OP does business with the EU. If they do not, they are truly out of the jurisdiction of GDPR and wouldn’t be finding themselves on that list. Those fines you are referring to a multinational corps that definitely do a lot of business within the EU.
the largest assumption you are making is that the OP does business with the EU. If they do not, they are truly out of the jurisdiction of GDPR
GDPR applies to American enterprises if they process personal data of EU citizens.
If you serve a website which is accessible to EU citizens, and that site collects personal data or allows users to enter personal data, GDPR most probably applies to you. IANAL.
True, but it’s important to note that personal data means identifiers such as name, date of birth, location, etc. Comments on a blog, by themselves, are not personal data.
If the comment keeps your IP address, and/or your email, or a nickname, it can be considered personal data.
The “simple” rule is : does that info, once used with other data, can allow someone to figure out who you are ? If so, then it’s personal. From there, always validate with a lawyer who is actually properly trained on the GDPR to review your decision.