What is the GDPR and How to Become GDPR Compliant

There’s been substantial attention given to the new GDPR Law lately, but many businesses are confused as to what it entails, and how it will affect their business.

In May 2018, the new GDPR law will take into effect across the European Union, and it will dramatically alter how businesses handle their data. Companies have to start taking steps to update their privacy policies, security practices, and data management procedures to ensure that they are GDPR compliant.

The GDPR law enables customers to control how their personal data is used, and determine which companies can use their data, and for what purpose. Businesses need to be able to address client data usage concerns effectively and demonstrate compliance to customers to maintain their trust and continue to use their personal data.

What is GDPR?

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. As the world shifts into a digital environment, companies that offer goods or services online and make digital transactions and interactions with other organizations and consumers are storing large volumes of customer and client data. As these transactions and interactions occur, information is stored digitally within databases. Companies need to be able to keep track of their data so that they can efficiently and quickly access specific client data related information, such as personal information or sales transactions. Customer approval to use personal data is critical, or else companies may be in danger of non-compliance.

Because the GDPR gives customers control over their personal information, businesses need to be able to clearly inform customers how their data is being used in an easy to understand way. Customers can then decide if they want to allow a business to use their data, modify their personal data, withdraw use of their personal data, or have their information sent to third-parties.

However, many companies that have older legacy systems in place have been storing client and consumer information for years. These companies need to be able to quickly access and efficiently manage all of their client data, even if it is not stored digitally, such as banks that have been keeping client files even before digital systems were in place, for example. All organizations, whether they are digital or have older legacy systems, must be able to readily access any client information, and use it in accordance with their client requests. Thus it’s vital for organizations to begin addressing their data management and data governance now so that they’re prepared for the GDPR when it goes into mandatory effect.

The GDPR is all about businesses establishing trust with clients, ensuring that their reputations remain intact, maintaining high levels of data security so that there are no risks of associated fines or penalties by failing to act in accordance with GDPR laws.

How to Become GDPR Compliant

Getting the approval from customers for how your company can use their data is vital. Understanding how you can legally use customer data under the GDPR is very important to maintaining a positive public opinion, trust, and ensuring that your reputation remains intact.

A modern data and analytics environment within your organization will make sure that you can properly protect client information. Having the right technologies in place so that you can support the vast amounts of customer data streams in your systems is the only way to ensure that client data is handled and secure. You have to avoid data security breaches at all costs with high levels of encryption so that you do not have any penalties or repercussions under GDPR laws.

The biggest challenges of the GDPR is managing all that customer information, and being able to access or remove information upon request. With the massive amounts of data being used and accessed, maintaining customer privacy is absolutely essential because with all this data, comes potential security risks via data breaches. You could suffer penalties of up to four million euros for these types of risks.

Another challenge is ensuring that the organizations you partner with, such as vendors or suppliers, should also be GDPR compliant, so you don’t put your company at risk. Be sure to document all personal data regarding customers and businesses that you interact with, managing all data and indicating legal processes for GDPR compliance in 2018.

Update your privacy policies to indicate how customer data is being used, be prepared to access client data in specific ways at any time, and ensure that you have a modern data and analytics environment in place that supports massive data streams. 

Become a GDPR Compliant Organization

May 2018 is fast approaching, and the GDPR law will be altering organizations across the European Union. It is essential for your organization to be properly prepared for this change, and start being proactive about the data practices. Customers are going to be in control of their data that is used by your company, and for your reputation to remain intact and to avoid penalties and fines with the law, it is essential to be compliant.

Relying on a trusted data outsourcing agency, one that understands the importance of GDPR compliance and regulations, like Data Entry Outsourced (DEO), can help your company overcome challenges, avoid risks, manage data, and ensure privacy and security related to the GDPR.

– DataEntryOutsourced