In this case, however, you are the one gathering the data.

What about someone that observes you and draws their own conclusions ? Is that data yours or theirs ?

For example, doctors will observer you in a hospital, they will write down stuff about your case and use that + the process of your care to train interns. Do you believe that said data is owned by you ?

What’s relevant about GDPR, is that it only really stops you from collection “identifiable” data.

So as long as all the information you have can’t be traced back to an email or a first+last name combo it’s still the person which collects the data that owns it.

Even if that’s not the case, I believe, companies are only forced to delete your data, not share it or the insights you have collected with you.

But GDPR shouldn’t be confused with “culturally appropriate”, the fact that GDPR was passed doesn’t mean everyone agrees with it. Indeed, the vast majority of Europeans don’t know about it or don’t understand it.

GDPR is what it is now, but as more light is shed on the subject and the ramifications of it become evident (e.g. tighter data control laws also lead to stuff like the recent EU copyright law), we may see a movement against it.