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General Data Protection Regulation – GDPR

Data protection is the main focal point for almost every company and organization out there. With more and more people willing to give up their personal security and submit their fragile data to various companies in return for free services, the amount of data breaches in the recent years has been overwhelming. There is no doubt that there is a need for a new set of rules and laws for data protection, fit for the times we live in. So the European Union took matters into their hands and created a new regulation that will come to life in May 2018.

What the GDPR actually is?

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, for short) is the effect of four years-worth of efforts to update data protection in companies for the 21 century and the standards that would seem ridiculous just over 20 years ago. Today, people are willingly giving permission to use their personal data to various companies in exchange for seemingly ‘free’ services.

As far as most European countries go, GDPR will replace their current Data Protection acts and regulations and it will seek to give people more control over how organizations use their data for their personal purposes. GDPR will also introduce many penalties for organizations that fail to comply with the new set of and for those that don’t do enough to protect the data and as a result suffer data breaches. Finally, the GDPR ensures that data protection laws are now almost identical in all European countries, which is obviously a nod to the ever-growing globalization.

businesman in the blue suit

How to get GDPR certification?

Getting certified to the new GDPR rules means updating the company’s current Information Security Management System to the new standards and getting an audit to prove the compliance. In more basic terms, getting certified means proving that your company, as a controller of someone’s personal data, is processing the information lawfully, transparently and for a specific use only. The specific use must be agreed upon by the person that has submitted said data and as of now, they have the law to ask the company to completely delete their data from the servers without explanation. Also, companies will need to delete all the data once the purpose that it was submitted for has been fulfilled and the data is no longer required. We must all remember that since GDPR is a regulation, companies do not get certified to get a competitive advantage – compliance to GDPR will be their duty and if they fail to comply, fines will be imposed.