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BSI makes film of Hitachi Consulting becoming the first global brand to achieve BS10012:2017 certification ahead of 25 May 2018

May 22, 2018, Categories  EU General Data Protection Regulation Comments No comments

Yesterday, I gave an interview on film about my role as a member of the team that led to Hitachi Consulting Corp becoming the first global brand to achieve BS10012:2017.The new standard was created in the wake of the GDPR and is a Personal Information Management System (PIMS). This is a significant achievement as Hitachi Consulting Corp can now demonstrate – and it’s been independently verified by the oldest standards awarding body in thew world – that it has a world-class  culture of compliance. The PIMS sits at the heart of Hitachi Consulting Corp. efforts to comply with the GDPR.  The short film is available here   It was launched on Friday 25 May to coincide with the end of the transition period for the GDPR.  With me is Joanne Bennett, VP, Associate General Counsel – Commer...
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Flight to quality GDPR training expected after 25 May 2018 as companies realise they are under-prepared and require better quality training

May 16, 2018, Categories  News Comments No comments

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Watch my GDPR presentation delivered at Empower MSP Amsterdam on 15 May 2018

May 16, 2018, Categories  Events Comments No comments

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US companies are behind the curve on understanding how GDPR impacts their businesses

May 12, 2018, Categories  EU General Data Protection Regulation, European Commission, European Parliament, GDPR Handbook, Legal update, News, Thought Leadership Comments No comments

There’s an eerie lack of awareness about the impact of the GDPR on US businesses that target consumers in the European Union. According to recent research by the IAPP, complexity of laws, inadequate budget and too little time combined with the lack of qualified and trained staff have conspired to perpetuate this lack of readiness by US companies.

Here in Europe, many companies and organisations have been bracing themselves for the biggest shake-up in data protection, privacy and security for over two decades that’s fully effective from 25 May 2018 – in 13 days’ time.

I’ve been in conversations with senior US-executives who’ve boldly told me that the “GDPR doesn’t apply to them” and in any event they can rely on ‘legitimate interest’ to continue to market goods and services and monitor t...

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Enough already? Fed up with GDPR emails asking for your consent?

May 12, 2018, Categories  EU General Data Protection Regulation, News Comments No comments

You bet!

This is an all-out attack by the zombies! They follow other zombies by sending us mindless emails saying this kind of crap:

“We’re committed to managing and safeguarding the information you give us when looking for a job. CLICK HERE TO STAY SIGNED UP.”

Or how about this:

“LET’S STAY IN TOUCH. Did you know? New privacy laws come in to effect on 25 May. This landmark new law is designed to improve your privacy rights. This is great news for online shoppers, so if you enjoy getting our promotional emails, just click below…”

Or this:

“We don’t want to lose you, so please take action NOW”

STOP! THINK! LEARN!

These emails are pointless!

In the UK, it’s been the law since 2003 that you can only send a marketing email to an individual recipient when they’ve consented...

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Dot Gone! The end of the road for Whois

May 2, 2018, Categories  EU General Data Protection Regulation, News, Thought Leadership Comments No comments

It’s the end of the road – and the end of an era – for the Whois service as its US-based parent ICANN fails to find a solution to continue the service that isn’t a breach of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

According to its Wikipedia entry, Whois is a ‘query and response protocol that’s widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of anInternet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block, or an autonomous system, but is also used for a wider range of other information. The protocol stores and delivers database content in a human-readable format.’

The Whois system publishes the name, address and telephone number of everyone that registers an internet address without any data privacy notice or prior consent of the ...

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End of Cambridge Analytica as it puts itself into voluntary liquidation

May 2, 2018, Categories  News Comments No comments

In a meeting just before 1300 (GMT) today, Wednesday 2 May, staff at data agency Cambridge Analytica were told that it was putting itself into voluntary liquidation.

For the BBC news report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43985186

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Creepy or Cool?

April 28, 2018, Categories  EU General Data Protection Regulation, Henley Business School, News, Thought Leadership Comments No comments

When it comes down to deciding whether to process personal data under consent or legitimate interests – try thinking to yourself if you were the data subject (customer, client, supporter or employee) would you find it creepy or cool? If it’s creepy – it’s not the right thing to do. And you don’t need a lawyer to tell you that. I delivered this presentation at the recent IAPP Data Protection Intensive 2018 in London.

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Speaking at the CIPD Learning & Development Conference 2018

April 28, 2018, Categories  Guru in a Bottle Comments No comments

Great to see so many people at the excellent CIPD Learning & Development Conference 2018 at Olympia, London on Thursday 26 April 2018. I managed to catch up with my colleagues at the Henley Business School stand as well as bump into my publisher Helen Kogan, CEO, Kogan Page!  I delivered a presentation about GDPR and HR – busy times!

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‘Surveillance Capitalism’ – will it survive post-GDPR?

April 28, 2018, Categories  EU General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR Handbook, Henley Business School, Legal update, News, Thought Leadership Comments No comments

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica now face a series of class actions for ‘surveillance capitalism’ in the US – will this open the floodgates for similar legal actions across the world?

Class Action Complaint Case No. 18-cv-02276 has been brought by Patricia King (Plaintiff) in the US District Court for the Northern District of California and has asked for trial by jury.

The class action reads as follows:

1. Facebook is a social networking platform that engages in surveillance capitalism: It monetizes personal and behavioral data which it acquires through real-time surveillance of Facebook users. (see Shoshana Zuboff, Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization, 30 J. Info. Tech. 75 (Apr. 4, 2015), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2594754).

2...

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