[Fnoord]

> To anyone in the EU: is GDPR something that your non-technical friend will have heard of and knows what it is? Or is it similar to the US, where 75% of people probably haven’t heard of it or if they have, couldn’t say what the regulation does.

Basically everyone who is in EU needs to keep GDPR in mind. Especially if you are employed, then you need to keep in mind GDPR for the interests of your employer so that they are abiding the law, and won't get fined. It is actually legal people who know GDPR very well; not so much tech people. In a lot of Dutch companies a "functionaris gegevensbescherming" (FG; data protection officer) is mandatory, who basically deal with PII, and have known about GDPR (AVG) ever since it was announced it was going to be active (2 years before it was active). The Dutch professional association for the data protection officer was founded in 2003 [1].

On top of that, it was widely covered in newspapers, daily news, etc. If you are in EU and you have not heard about it you are living under a rock, or you're not a working adult (nothing wrong with either).

[1] https://www.ngfg.nl