- ScrapingOn May 1, 2024, Data Protection Authority (“DPA”) of the Netherlandspublished fresh guidelines targeting web scraping methodologies utilizedby private organisations. The objective of these DPA guidelines is tomonitor and govern the way Generative AI businesses operate their datascraping processes.
- Web scraping or data scraping refers to the process of automaticallycollecting data from the Internet and storing it. The DPA of the Netherlandsregards this process as a potential privacy risk because scraping holds thepotential to collect personal data from a significant chunk of the populationin a relatively short period of time. The data so collected often also includesdata regarding several aspects of a person's personal life.
- In the guidance issued by the Dutch DPA, web-scraping is being conductedby numerous private companies and individuals in violation of the GeneralData Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) on the ground of lacking any legalbasis for processing personal data.
- The guidance is based on GDPR principles, especially the principles of“lawfulness” — the principle that provides for the requirement of a legalbasis of legitimate interest for web-scraping. This implies that, for a webscraping to be lawful, consent from all data subjects, including many whoare unknown to the controller, is needed.
- The guidance issued by the DPA of the Netherlands lays down that datascrapers will be deemed to have a legitimate interest only if the extent oftheir interest is not commercial and scraping takes place in a targetedfashion.
- Illustrations of the aforementioned types of lawful web scraping includedata scraping of: (i) mapping news about their own company or newspertinent to the operations of their own company from public newswebsites; (ii) scraping of information (such as customer reviews) from theirown website; and (iii) online public forum information related to security,for recording security risks threatening their organisation.
- The guidance, therefore, comes down strongly against a sweeping processof web-scraping adopted by private organisations for furthering theircommercial interests.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.