GDPR - Why should your company be worried about the new data protection regulation?

From May 2018, all organisations collecting or processing data from EU citizen must be adapted with the new regulations required by the GDPR (General Data Protection Directive).

The GDPR impacts almost all organisations that collect, store, use or transfer personal data. This includes companies in all industries including technology, cyber security, healthcare, financial services, legal, utilities, energy, consulting, government, human resources, marketing, telecommunications, retail, etc. In other words, everyone at some point might be affected by the regulations.

In order to help prepare our customers for this new legislation, New Horizons Ireland has partnered with the IAPP (International Association of Privacy Professionals) to bring you a range of courses that cover data protection. The first two new courses are Preparing for the GDPR and The GDPR Primer for Data Protection Officers.

The 2016 report released by the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) showed that the office received 2,224 breach notifications in 2016. The figures also demonstrate that they investigate 1,479 complaints, more than half of which (56%) pertained to access requests. The DPC office also carried out more than 50 audits and inspections, with 9 prosecutions for electronic marketing offenses. The breakdown of data breaches showed that unauthorised disclosures were by far the largest proportion of breaches, with 1,117 under the ‘other’ category, followed by postal (570) and electronic (376).

What organisations must do to comply with the new regulations

• Implement both policies: “privacy by default” and “privacy by design”;
• Maintain appropriate data security;
• In case of data breaches, the company must notify data protection agencies and consumers;
• For most personal data collection, the company needs to get appropriate consent and provide notification about personal data processing activities;
• Must get a parent’s consent to collect data from children under 16;
• Keep records of all personal information;
• Nominate a Data Protection Officer – DPO (if you process lots of data and particularly sensitive data);
• Take responsibility for the security and processing activities of third-party vendors;
• Be able to conduct data protection impact assessments on new processing activities;
• Institute safeguards for cross-border data transfer;
• Before certain processing activities, you must consult with regulators;
• Demonstrate compliance on demand;

Preparation is key

With these new rules coming into place in May next year, companies need to be prepared to hit the ground running. New Horizons Ireland has the training courses needed to get your staff in a position of confidence in relation to the new regulations.

GDPR Certifications

Other Popular GDPR courses

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