SCENARIO

Please use the following to answer the next question:

Jane starts her new role as a Data Protection Officer (DPO) at a Malta-based

company that allows anyone to buy and sell cryptocurrencies via its online platform.

The company stores and processes the personal data of its customers in a

dedicated data center located in Malta (EU).

People wishing to trade cryptocurrencies are required to open an online account on

the platform. They then must successfully pass a Know Your Customer (KYC) due

diligence procedure aimed at preventing money laundering and ensuring

compliance with applicable financial regulations.

The non-European customers are also required to waive all their GDPR rights by

reading a disclaimer written in bold and ticking a checkbox on a separate page in

order to get their account approved on the platform.

All customers must likewise accept the terms of service of the platform. The terms

of service also include a privacy policy section, saying, among other things, that if a

customer fails the KYC process, its KYC data will be automatically shared with the

national anti-money laundering agency.

The KYC procedure requires customers to answer many questions, including

whether they have any criminal convictions, whether they use recreational drugs or

have problems with alcohol, and whether they have a terminal illness. While

providing this data, customers see a conspicuous message saying that this data is

meant only to prevent fraud and account takeover, and will be never shared with

private third parties.

The company regularly conducts external security testing of its online systems by

independent cybersecurity companies from the EU. At the final stage of testing, the

company provides cybersecurity assessors with access to its central database to

review security permissions, roles and policies. Personal data in the database is

encrypted; however, cybersecurity assessors usually have access to the decryption

keys obtained while running initial security testing. The assessors must strictly

follow the guidelines imposed by the company during the entire testing and auditing

process.

All customer data, including trading activities and all internal communications with

technical support, are permanently stored in a secured AWS S3 Glacier cloud data

storage, located in Ireland, for backup and compliance purposes. The data is

securely transferred to the cloud and then is properly encrypted while at rest by

using AWS-native encryption mechanisms. These mechanisms give AWS the

necessary technical means to encrypt and decrypt the data when such is required

by the company. There is no data processing agreement between AWS and the

company.

Should Jane modify the required GDPR rights waiver for non-European residents?