What is GDPR Compliance & What are its implications for Businesses?

The internet has a profound impact on our daily life, it has completely changed the way we communicate, and the way we perform different tasks. It is very common for us to write emails, share documents, pay bills and purchase goods online that require us to enter personal details on vendor’s website.

Have you ever thought, while using the internet, how much personal data have you shared online? and what happens to that information after you share it?  This information is not just limited to banking information, contact, and home address but it also includes social media posts, your IP address and information related to your internet browsing, all stored digitally.  

If you go through, privacy statements websites of different companies, you will know they collect information about you so they can serve you better, offer you improved customer experience.

But have you ever consider? Is that what they really use your personal information?

GDRP is new EU privacy regulation that is enforced to answer this question. As it will come into effect from May 2018, the way different websites collect, store and use customer data will be changed completely.

At Whitehats , we provide comprehensive Network security solutions in Dubai, that are designed while considering the security and compliance need of SMEs.

What is GDPR?

GDPR stands for “The General Data Protection Regulation” that is a European privacy regulation that will come into effect on 25th May 2018.  

This regulation will be the part of all local privacy laws across the entire EU and EEA region. All the companies who are involved in any type of transaction that involves storing personal information about EU citizens including any companies that are located on other continents will have to provide customers greater control over their information. This also includes providing assurance that their information is securely stored across Europe.

This regulation is applicable to all type of personal information that includes personal data, name, photo, email address, bank details, social networking updates, location, address, medical/health-related data and computer Mac/IP address.

Under GDPR, every EU citizen has

• The Right to Access.   It means any individual can request any company to provide him details about his personal information stored by the company and the way this information is used without any charge.

• The Right to be forgotten.  It provides the right to an individual to request deletion of his data in case they are no longer a customer or if withdraw their consent from company to use their data.

• The Right to data portability.  Any individual can request the transfer of his data from one service provider to another.

• The Right to be informed. The consumers must opt-in for their data to be gathered, and they should freely give consent to gather their  personal data

• The Right to have information corrected.  It gives customers the right to have their information corrected and updated if incomplete or incorrect.

• The Right to restrict processing.  Customers can request their data, not to be used for processing; it may remain stored but will not be used as per request.

• The Right to object.  The individual has the right to object the use their data for marketing purposes and has the right to stop any company doing so.

• The Right to be notified.  If there has been a data breach that results in theft of customers’ information, then they are right to be informed within 72 hours of first becoming aware of it.

GDPR is EU`s way to provide individuals more power on their data and less power to the organizations to collect and use the customer information for monetary gains.

How Business will be affected?

With the implementation of this new privacy regulation, consumers are now in driver`s seat and responsibility for compliance now falls up the business and organizations.

In other words, GDPR is applicable to all businesses, and organizations that are registered in the EU, regardless of whether the data processing takes place within EU or outside anywhere else globally. It will also be applicable to Non-EU organization if they are offering their goods and services to the citizens of EU.

All the organization and companies that are involved in any work related to personal data will have to appoint data protection officer or data controller who will be responsible for GDRP compliance.

Failing to comply with this regulation may result in penalties that may be up to 4% of annual global revenue or 20 million Euros, whatever the greater.

GDPR compliance is not just an IT issue but it has far more implications in reality that will require companies to change the way the handle marketing and sales activities.

At Whitehats, our IT experts help suggests exactly the right security solution and measures for your business. We look beyond the constraints of your existing technology, to understand what your ideal security setup would look like and what the best Network Security Solution in Dubai will be to address the growing challenges.