What is GDPR? Things your organization should know to stay compliant

GDPR, or the General Data Protection Regulation contributes to being a European Union law that will have a huge impact on any organization, processing the data of the EU citizens, even in case the company is not situated in EU.

Organizations are motivated to make preparations for accomplishing the requirements, by the implementation. After all, GDPR is considered the most significant data privacy regulation in two decades.

Who needs GDPR COMPLIANCE?

There are a wide array of industries in which the core business is providing services to the customers individually.

It is inclusive of the processing of personal data on an immense scale. These industries are inclusive of retail, insurance and financial services sector.

All these companies need to take significant steps for complying with the GDPR.

Most of the manufacturers in this sector are interested in processing and collecting the personal info about the customers who are buying the products.

With the application of GDPR, these companies need to be more transparent with what they are going to do with the data, the reasons they need the data.

There are many companies that stand second to none in conferring system management, process and business services.

These companies will become a personal data processor for their controllers. While it is a prerequisite that the controllers should have GDPR compliance, it also needs to be ensured that the processors are GDPR complaint.

Thus, both of them will share the same liability if they fail to fulfil the obligations. These sectors are inclusive of law services, platform-based services, cloud-based services, marketing companies, event management, analytics, to name a few.

The GDPR requirements apply to almost all types of personal data, including those that are usually requested on websites – such as email addresses, IP addresses and more.

How to implement GDPR compliance

Implementation of GDPR happens to be a challenging and complicated procedure. Here are the steps that need to be followed for the implementation of the GDPR process:

Making preparations for the GDPR project

In the beginning, it is a prerequisite to developing a project plan for the implementation of GDPR.

The right stakeholders should be included in the GDPR project. A readiness assessment should be conducted in order to figure out the tasks that need to be performed.

Defining the top level documents, including the personal data policy

A policy for internal data protection needs to be developed for the personal data. It is also a prerequisite to developing top-notch policies such as Data Retention policies.

You can let your employees know about the different key requirements of GDPR. You need to make a decision about the assignment of the data protection officer, thereby ensuring that the decision has been documented.

If it is necessary, a data protection officer should be appointed for communicating the name to the supervisory authority.

Developing an inventory to process activities

You need to make a list of the processing activities and how they are going to fulfil the objectives, as mentioned in GDPR.

You should make sure that the organization has come up with the required privacy notices for those data subjects.

Implementation of DPIA or data protection impact assessment’

DPIA is used to identify risks related to data protection arising from a new project. This may affect your organization’s reputation.

It is required to conduct the DPIA at the beginning of a new project as per GDPR.

Protecting the transfer of personal data

You should make an analysis of how and when the personal data is transferred outside the organization.

You need to take the prerequisite security and legal measures for bestowing protection to the personal data in an adequate manner as the personal data is transferred outside the organization.

Amending the contracts of the third parties

You need to amend the contracts of third parties in which it is necessary to process the personal data for ensuring compliance with GDPR.

Ensuring the safety and security of sensitive and personal data

You need to implement the required technical and organizational measures for bestowing protection to the personal data of those data subjects.

You need to give a consideration to the protection and privacy during the designing of new processes and systems.

Defining the aspects for handling the breaching of data

You require setting up the procedures for the process of identifying and handling the breaching of the personal data.

You need to make preparations to notify to the data subjects and supervisory authority.

GDPR compliance requirements

Here are the things that a business should be aware of for getting ready for GDPR compliance:

Reviewing the GDPR and assessing the implications for the organization

Every organization should be aware of the elements of GDPR and take a note of the specific changes that maybe of a significant effect on the organization.

As the ICO or the office of the information commissioners work closely with the representatives of different sectors and trade associations, the entities will become a vital source for the companies in every sector that will be helpful in navigating the GDPR changes, that are crucial to them.

Highlighting the vital changes

Every company should assign the responsibility to a team member for reading the provisions, as mentioned in GDPR and become familiar with their requirements and the ways, they pertain to the specific circumstances.

Here is a list of some of the crucial and vital challenges:

• Irrespective of the location of the company to process data, it is necessary to comply with these regulations.
• If the regulations are breached, penalties are going to be leveraged on the processors and controllers where they can be a fine of almost 20 million pounds or 4 per cent of the total annual turnover, whichever is higher.
• It is a must to inform about the breaching within the time span of 72 hours.
• New strict factors to seek permission for using the data have come into being that need an easily accessed and intelligible form in which easy to understand and clear language is used. Withdrawal of the consent is known to be easy in a similar manner.
• The GDPR helps the people in requesting and receiving personal info and transmitting the same to the other data controller.
• The right to be forgotten, as mentioned in GDPR, let the individual request the deletion of their personal data. Hence, the data dissemination needs to be stopped and third parties should be refrained to process the data.
• Some organizations need to appoint the DPO or data protection officer.
• Though the privacy of design is into existence for a wide number of years, the GDPR ensures that protection of data is a legal requirement during the designing of the system.

Measures to be taken for getting ready for GDPR compliance

Assessing what you need to do in the organization

The requirements of the GDPR needs to be reviewed for understanding the implications of the company.

You should make sure to provide updates to the decision maker about the necessary changes, that you are going to make.

For a few companies, the changes can have the significant effect on different departments. Thus, the sooner you take the prerequisite measures, the better.

Updating of privacy notices

You are most likely need to update how a person should be communicating with the consumers and how you will make use of any sort of personal data for compliance with the GDPR.

Apart from this, the privacy notice requires explaining the lawful basis to process the personal data.

Information data

You should be auditing the personal data, that you collected and stored, the source of the data and the people with which it has been shared.

One of the requirements of GDPR is recording the processing activities and having effective procedures and policies in the place.

Portability of data

As a lot of individual rights that have been outlined in GDPR, is present in the Data Protection Act, in case you have been following the requirements already, no significant amount of effort is going to be required for complying with the latest regulations.

Thus, you can have a good span of time for reviewing the latest procedures that should be covered. The data portability component is totally new.

Hence, you should be considering how the system is going to handle the request of a person who wants to have their own data in a machine-readable format.

Access requests

You should be verifying that you require accommodating the new mandates, about the dealing of data access requests within the time span of 30 days.

Permission

It is a prerequisite to go through the detailed instructions that are present in consent.

This will be helpful in covering how you are going to record, seek as well as manage the consent.

Consent is not going to be assumed from inactivity and silent. Instead, it should be verified.

Breaching of data

It is high time that you should compare the current process of the data breach in the organization and compare what you are going to do with the GDPR requirements.

Data of the children

The outlines, as mentioned in GDPR outlines the special protection for the data of the children.

Hence, you should give a consideration that if the systems are going to verify ages and get the consent from the parents to process the data of the children.

Conclusion

In this blog, we saw how to implement GDPR and the compliance requirements. On our next blog, we will discuss the GDPR testing checklist.

Though GDPR has its presence in EU, it can be applied to businesses across the world. As a data controller, GDPR necessitates a legal obligation to recruit a data protection officer (DPO) who oversees an organization’s data protection strategy, monitor data transfer operations, educate and train employees on regulatory compliance and more.

It is important to make sure your organization is compliant with GDPR. If you need any help with GDPR compliance, please get in touch with us.