You may have heard the expression, but what does it mean, how will you have to change your business? To learn more, I attended an excellent presentation yesterday hosted by Brett Riley-Tomlinson of Novus Marketing Solutions.
Rumours of fines if you do not comply have certainly focused the mind.
So, in summary what did I learn?
- GDPR comes into force on 28th May – just over four months – which means we need to act NOW!
- GDPR replaces the current Data Protection Act which is now 20 yrs old and not fit for purpose
- GDPR is an EU Regulation – ie there is no room for countries to ‘interpret’ the law.
- For the avoidance of doubt, the UK will be adopting the regulation despite exiting the EU – albeit with a couple of minor amends
- Applies to all companies processing the personal data of data subjects residing in the Union, regardless of the company’s location
- Fines can be considerable especially if you do not report a breach or you have inadequate systems and processes to protect data
- The regulation itself is not too difficult to understand or comprehend – if you put yourself in the place of a ‘customer’ or data subject – how would you like your data to be captured, held, used and for how long.
There will be tangible benefits for the public especially the reduction in SPAM emails and cold calling.
At the end of the presentation almost everyone in the room had questions to create a lively debate and for individuals to learn how if applied to their specific business.
Brett concluded to encourage us to embrace GDPR, become compliant ahead of the deadline and use it as part of our marketing. Several major companies are already compliant, but we were also shown a list of well-known businesses and organisations which are not.
So, I would encourage everyone to understand the implications on your business and take action well ahead of the deadline.
Apple Property Partners Ltd 