January 28th is Data Privacy Day, and was initiated by the Council of Europe in 2007. Since then, many advances to protect individuals’ right to privacy have been made.
The most important of these is the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which was implemented on May 25, 2018. Runbox has promoted data privacy for many years, anchored in Norway’s strong privacy legislation.
At Runbox, which is located in the privacy bastion Norway, we believe that privacy is an intrinsic right and that data privacy should be promoted every day of the year.
We’re pleased that Data Privacy Day highlights this important cause. Many who use the Internet and email services in particular may think they have nothing to hide, not realizing that their data may be analyzed and exploited by corporations and nation states in ways they aren’t aware of and can’t control.
While threats to online privacy around the world are real and must be addressed, we should not be overly alarmed or exaggerate the problem. Therefore we take the opportunity to calmly provide an overview of Norway’s and Runbox’ implementation of data privacy protection.
Norway enforces strong privacy legislation
First of all, Norway has enacted strong legislation regulating the collection, storage, and processing of personal data, mainly in The Personal Data Act.
The first version of Norway’s Personal Data Act was implemented as early as 1978. This was a result of the pioneering work provided by the Department of Private Law at the University of Oslo, where one of the first academic teams within IT and privacy worldwide was established in 1970.
Additionally, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, an independent authority, facilitates protection of individuals from violation of their right to privacy through processing of their personal data.
For an overview of privacy related regulations in the US, in Europe, and in Norway, and describes how Runbox applies the strong Norwegian privacy regulations in our operations, see this article: Email Privacy Regulations
Runbox enforces a strong Privacy Policy
The Runbox Privacy Policy is the main policy document regulating the privacy protection of account information, account content, and other user data registered via our services.
If you haven’t reviewed our Privacy Policy yet we strongly encourage you to do so as it describes how data are collected and processed while using Runbox, explains what your rights are as a user, and helps you understand what your options are with regards to your privacy.
Runbox is transparent
Runbox believes in transparency and we provide an overview of requests for disclosure of individual customer data that we have received directly from authorities and others.
Our Transparency Report is available online to ensure that Runbox is fully transparent about any disclosure of user data.
Runbox is GDPR compliant
Runbox spent 4 years planning and implementing EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, starting the process as early as 2014.
We divided the activities implementing the GDPR in Runbox into 3 main areas:
- Internal policies and procedures
- Partners and contractors
- Protection of users’ rights
This blog post describes how we did it: GDPR and Updates to our Terms and Policies
More information
For more information about Runbox’ commitment to data privacy, we recommend reviewing the Runbox Privacy Commitment.
