For the last five years, Forrester has issued a heat map illustrating the privacy protection guidelines and practices of 54 different countries. It brings to light some overall trends that are emerging on the global scale.

Contradicting Trends

There are two seemingly contradictory trends. While governments increased protection of personally identifiable information (PII) for their citizens in the commercial area, they also made it easier for law enforcement to obtain this same information.

SecurityWeek noted that the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) exemplifies this contradiction. These regulations strictly control how enterprises use PII; simultaneously, the EU is introducing new surveillance legislation that will greatly increase the government’s ability to monitor its citizens.

Some of these trends may not be readily apparent to those outside the EU. The Netherlands and Finland, for example, have the most restrictive privacy regulations in place, according to the heat map. Those countries are quick to hold a business accountable for improper PII use within the enterprise, but they are also enacting laws that enable their governments to perform surveillance on citizens.

“The balance between security intelligence and personal privacy continues to pit governments against citizens,” Forrester analyst Chris Sherman wrote in Forbes.

Preliminary Preparations for Privacy Protection

Forrester found that other countries were using the European standard as the model for their own legislation on data privacy. Some countries even established new governmental bodies to enforce privacy, such as Japan with its Privacy Protection Commission.

Additionally, enterprises expect the GDPR to affect business on a global scale. The GDPR will apply to foreign companies that do business in the EU or collect EU residents’ data. That means the EU can penalize foreign firms for noncompliance once the compliance date has passed.

South Korea followed the GPDR spirit in March by imposing stiff penalties on telecommunications companies and online service providers for privacy violations. This shows that foreign companies that do business in the EU are trying to establish conformance with the GPDR — despite not being directly governed by those regulations — so that their business can continue and grow in the new environment.

U.S. companies doing business in the EU will surely be affected as well. Companies will have to rethink and retool their data privacy practices to continue to do business in the EU; that will be true no matter where a company is based.

May 2018 is the deadline for full compliance with GDPR.