‘Easy privacy information via icons? Yes, you can!’ This is the claim used by the Italian SA to launch a contest for solutions that can make information notices simpler, clearer and immediately understandable through icons, symbols or other graphic elements – in short, to make sure that the notices are really helpful and suitable for the purpose for which they are intended.
The information notices used by companies, public bodies, websites, social networks and search engines are often lengthy and complex and therefore cannot fulfil their essential function, which is informing data subjects about how their personal data will be used and allowing them where appropriate to give their free, informed consent to the processing of their data for whatever purpose – be it marketing, profiling, or the disclosure of information to third parties.
The Garante is calling upon software developers, tech professionals, experts, lawyers, designers, university students, and anyone interested in this topic, to send a set of symbols or icons that can represent all the items that must be contained in an information notice under Articles 13 and 14 of the GDPR.
Proposals will be welcome until 30 May, 2021 and should be emailed to icona@gpdp.it.
The Garante will select three datasets of symbols and icons that are considered especially effective and will make them available on its website for use by all stakeholders, specifying the author’s name.
The applicable rules are available at www.gpdp.it/informativechiare