May 25, 2018, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into effect requiring companies that process personally identifiable information of EU residents to comply with a significant number of enhanced data-protection requirements. One of these requirements is an individual’s “right to explanation” of an algorithmic decision made about him or her by a machine. This right will affect companies that monitor the behavior of European residents for the purposes of data-subject “profiling” that produces legal effects or significantly affects the natural persons whose personal information is being collected and analyzed. This includes “profiling” that consists of any form of automated processing of personal data evaluating the personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyze or predict aspects concerning the data subject’s performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences or interests, reliability or behavior, location or movements.
