The European Commission has published additional guidance on the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation and how it is expected to affect businesses. The document aims to summarise the purpose and benefits of the GDPR, while also outlining steps that organisations need to take in preparation for the regulation and discussing the steps that the Commission plans to take in the coming months. The European Commission has also taken this opportunity to launch a new online tool to help businesses (particularly small and medium-sized enterprises) meet GDPR compliance in time for the May 25th deadline.
Carphone Warehouse Fined €450,000 Over Data Breach and “Significant Inadequacies”
Carphone Warehouse have been ordered to pay a fine of £400,000 (over €450,000) to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, one of the largest fines the ICO has ever issued to a company. A data breach at Carphone Warehouse occurred in 2015, which subsequently led the ICO to investigate the company and discovered a series of “systematic failures” in security practice. The severity of the fine reflected the fact that up to 3 million customers’ data was compromised, in addition to the data of a further 1000 employees. The data itself was also considered extensive by the ICO, as names, addresses, phone numbers, marital status and dates of birth were all leaked. It is further believed that some 18,000 customers had payment card details leaked as well.
The £400,000 fine issued to Carphone Warehouse was one of the largest issued by the ICO. Over 3 million records were compromised in the breach.
New Survey Estimates 75% of Irish Businesses Not Ready for GDPR
A new survey has been conducted by Mazars and McCann Fitzgerald on Irish businesses around their levels of GDPR readiness, and the results are not pretty. An astounding three quarters of businesses surveyed say that they’re not ready for the GDPR, which comes into effect in six months time. This latest insight into how the new EU data protection regulation will affect Irish businesses has revealed that they are facing serious levels of difficulty in complying with the new rules.
The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has stated that there will be “no leeway” for non-compliance come May
Businesses Confused by “State of the Art” GDPR Tech Requirement
GDPR is coming. Rapidly, as it so happens, and at the time of writing there is just over 6 months to go until the 25th May 2018 deadline for compliance. Since the GDPR was adopted by the EU in 2016, businesses have been trying their best to understand the impending data protection regulation and, ultimately, ensure they are compliant. The GDPR is no straight-forward matter, though, as much of the phrasing is purposely vague to allow for possible technological advances, and to ensure that the regulation itself does not become obsolete in the near future. The idea is that if the GDPR specified which technologies were to be employed by a business in order to safeguard its data, it may be superseded by new technologies – thus reducing the effectiveness of the regulation. A key GDPR requirement, under Article 32, states that data controllers and processors are required to “implement appropriate technical and organizational measures” taking into account “the state of the art and the costs of implementation” and “the nature, scope, context, and purposes of the processing”. But what exactly does state of the art mean?
The EU has specifically worded some GDPR requirements in a vague manner, to ‘future-proof’ them from technological advances
Studies Show Many Businesses Confused or Unprepared for GDPR
With the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) only 8 months away from coming into force, surveys are showing that many businesses across the UK and Ireland are still confused about exactly what the regulation means for them, and may be unprepared for GDPR. A survey conducted of over 1000 IT decision makers revealed that 64% were unaware that customers’ birth dates are considered personally identifiable information (PII), which is especially worrying as any mishandling of such data could constitute a breach of the GDPR and result in fines of up to €20 million. 42% did not realise that email marketing databases contained PII, 32% did not consider physical addresses to be and 21% did not even consider customer email addresses to be PII. In contrast, 85% of these survey respondents reported that they have reviewed the GDPR requirement thoroughly and 79% believe they have done everything they need to do to secure their data. This disparity marks a worrying trend for businesses, big or small.
