GDPR at Year One: Enter the Designers and Engineers

The articles in this special section address the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Europe’s massive overhaul of its privacy and data protection laws, came into effect to great fanfare in May 2018. Impacting every area of an economy marked by technological and data innovation, including the public and private sectors, finance and health care, retail and education, transportation, pharmaceuticals, utilities, and scientific research, the GDPR carried immense promise but also many implementation challenges and interpretation complexities. A year in, it is not too soon to pause for reflection and to explore the reform’s effect on corporate and organizational data practices, particularly at the intersection of policy, law, and engineering.