In compliance with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which came into force earlier this year, Google is updating its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The company has started to notify European Economic Area (EEA) and Swiss users about the changes coming into effect on January 22, 2019.
Google Ireland Limited, based in Dublin, will become the center responsible for consumer services, such as Search, Gmail, and Maps. The alterations to Google’s general Terms of Service are due to the replacement of the current service provider, Google LLC, based in the US. Similar changes are also being made in separate terms for Drive, Play, YouTube, and YouTube Paid Service.
Furthermore, the Irish subsidiary will take over the responsibility for data control, and assume the legal liability for the information of EEA and Swiss users. “Google Ireland Limited becomes responsible for responding to requests for its user data, including from EU law enforcement, consistent with Irish law,” said Anne Rooney, Google Ireland’s public policy manager.
According to Ms. Rooney, the company “is making the data controller change to facilitate engagement with EU data protection authorities via the GDPR’s ‘One Stop Shop’ mechanism, which was created to ensure consistency of regulatory decisions for companies and EU citizens.”
The representative of Google also provided assurances that these changes would not alter how their products work, or how Google collects or processes user data within their services.
“Nothing changes about your current settings, and you will continue to have granular control over the data you share with us when you use our services. And of course, we remain fully committed to compliance with the GDPR across all of the services we provide in the European Union.”
