Paul Watson
The General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR is the newest Data Protection Directive. The GDPR compliance protects the personal data of people living in the European Union. Personal data covered under the GDPR compliance are safe from security breaches, mishandling, misprocessing.
In summary, the GDPR aims to reduce the frequency and severity of these unfortunate instances concerning personal data on the web. In this article, we give you a quick guide to GDPR compliance and all things that you must definitely know about it.
The seven principles of GDPR
First and foremost, since the GDPR sets a rule for companies and organizations that handle personal data, they have outlined their regulations according to the seven principles:
- Lawfulness, fairness, and transparency
- Purpose limitation
- Data minimization
- Accuracy
- Storage limitation
- Integrity and confidentiality (security)
- Accountability
Why is GDPR compliance important?
In this generation, to say that GDPR compliance is important would be an understatement. For any business, organization or company that collects personal data, they are subject to the provisions of the GDPR. Thus, non-compliance would also mean that they are automatically subjected to the corresponding penalties.
The penalties for not complying with the GDPR do not come cheap. Thus, these companies and enterprises must strictly follow so as not to pay the hefty penalty fees.
Who is affected by the GDPR and when did it take effect?
The GDPR first went into full enforcement last May 25, 2018. Those affected by the GDPR are those businesses, entities, and organizations that collect and accept personal data from any citizen of the European Union (EU). This is regardless of the country of origin, may it be within or outside the EU. Simply put, the GDPR covers every public-facing enterprise.
In addition to that, the fines imposed by the GDPR authorities clearly states that it applies to every business and organization that collects stores and processes personal information.
What are the penalties for GDPR noncompliance?
We cannot stress this enough, the penalties of GDPR noncompliance are severe and poses a significant risk of accountability for any company or business. The maximum assessable penalty is at 4% of the company’s yearly global revenue. This is applicable to those who failed to garner the required level of customer consent for personal data processing. Also, violating the Privacy by Design concept.
The GDPR Privacy by Design means data protection through technology design. The thought behind this is that “data protection in data processing procedures is best adhered to when it is already integrated into the technology when created.”
Moreover, other penalties are computed on a tiered basis that depends on the violation. For instance, the company can be fined at 2% for not having a precise and clear record. It could also be because of not notifying the authorities and personal data subject involved immediately, and failing to conduct the required security breach impact assessment.
What are the highlighted provisions of the GDPR?
Last but definitely not least, knowing the key provisions of the GDPR will greatly help with easier and smoother compliance. According to the GDPR, personal data is any information that can be utilized to directly or indirectly identify a certain person. This can be as simple as a name, a picture, and details of his or her bank account, social media posts and even an IP address.
Since personal data has such a broad scope, businesses and organizations must document the processes that will limit access to this personal information. It must only be within reach by authorized personnel and employees that are required by their job to do so.
