Digital Journal has earlier reported on the forthcoming European data privacy legislation – the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (See: “European business needs to get smart about data protection”). When the regulation comes into force on May 25, 2018, businesses operating within the European Union will be required to introduce systematic changes in terms of how data is handled. For organizations that do not put measures in place by the ‘go live’ date, face expensive fines.
The cost of ignoring the new regulations is high. The GDPR provides fines of up to four per cent of trailing annual gross revenue; for a $1 billion turnover firm, that would equate to a maximum penalty of $40 million.
What is GDPR?
The General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation EU 2016/679) strengthens data protection for individuals living in each European Union member state. The rules apply to any personal data exported from within the European Union to a country outside of the European Union. This extends to everything from business e-mail lists to digital information held about employees and customers.
Personal data embraces everything from names, postal addresses, images, electronic messaging addresses to IP addresses, posts on social media networks, medical information and beyond.
An opportunity for businesses
A new report from IT Insights, produced by the company Box, says that instead of seeing GDPR as a threat, or a major expense, businesses should see the opportunities that the change presents. The regulation can allow businesses to “keep customers happy, improve our brands and build a platform for business analysis based on accurate, concise, and coherent information assets.”
The benefits include undertaking regular audits of data. This activity helps businesses to review their information to assess whether it is of value and whether it is up-to-date. It also helps companies to track and identify where their data is stored. The ‘spring cleaning’ also helps companies to classify and re-store data in easier to access and within more meaningful categories.
The process also helps organizations to use new technologies that with assist better with data analytics and information retrieval, making the business more robust going forwards.
In related news, developers have produced a new artificial intelligence solution to help companies keep control over the requirement of the GDPR regulation. The software is called the MinerEye Data Tracker (see: “AI tool for GDPR compliance.”)
