Wake up call for all major UK companies as GDPR is now around the corner

October 4, 2015,  data protection, EU General Data Protection Regulation, News, Thought Leadership  No comments

Each day more and more comment is emerging on the lack of preparedness of business to deal with the forthcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the need to put education and training on the top of the business agenda – and you may find these two very recent news items of interest and helpful.

We’ve been briefing a Member of the Government’s Treasury Select Committee a few weeks’ ago when we highlighted the issue of GDPR is simply much bigger than a digital marketing issue under ICO’s remit reporting into the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Check out this recent news item

We strongly support the idea of a debate in the British Parliament about the role that the British Government and in particular the role that the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) now needs to play in raising awareness about GDPR and the changes in data protection and privacy as well as helping to ensure that all business sectors are advised to get education and training as soon as possible as well as recruit suitably qualified individuals before it’s too late.

Separately, a new independent survey of 300 businesses supports this general lack of preparedness and highlights the business continuity risk faced by companies with respect to GDPR:

1. Almost 20% of all respondents still had no idea whether changes in the regulation will apply to them, despite confirming they do store and process personal data
2. 69% of respondents said their business will need to invest in new technologies or services to help prepare the business for the impact of GDPR
3. 75% of respondents said that keeping up to date with changing data protection regulatory requirements is a burden on their business
4. Over 50% of respondents reported that their business has already allocated training budget to help staff understand and comply with GDPR, however, just under a third have not

Details of the survey can be found here

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