Ensuring GDPR compliance can boost your business.
Many business owners see GDPR as a disadvantage, due to the variety of new regulations and potential fines that come with it. However, with this huge shift in personal privacy data regulation comes unexpected business opportunities for companies around the world.
GDPR provides a structure for overall better business practices and a way for companies to maintain the trust of consumers despite the growing number of data loss and breach incidents that circulate in the news.
Personal data privacy has become a hot topic as companies such as Facebook, Google, and Yahoo fall victim to malicious attacks or accidental breaches caused by human error, exposing the personal information of millions of their customers.
GDPR protects the personal privacy rights of EU residents, but it also protects the businesses that adopt and maintain it from the danger of complacency: the risk of suffering large and expensive data breaches simply because they failed to take preventative measures or adequately assess and report the damage.
GDPR helps businesses to build more secure foundations for their success, but its advantages don’t stop there. Let’s review a few more opportunities and benefits provided by the framework.
Gain the control
The GDPR makes organizations accountable for personal data protection – they need to know exactly what data they process and how they protect it. This includes having security measures in place to guard against data breaches and taking quick action to notify individuals and authorities in the event a breach does occur.
It is important to have a data protection officer (DPO) who understands data privacy and knows how to apply the law, but also be supported by innovative technologies that will serve as ‘ad-hand DPO’.
Data is the organization’s most important asset and is treated as a currency. Having a solid data management and data governance policies in place became a must that helps comply with the privacy laws. The GDPR gives the opportunity to holistically reassess these policies – for all the data, not just personal data.
This is a valuable undertaking and a way to gain business benefits from an extensive legal compliance project.
Cost Savings
Maintaining and securing customer data is expensive. The GDPR framework provides an opportunity for businesses to assess what data they hold, for how long, and why. Not only is it more convenient to delete extra data, but it reduces costs. This reduction in cost can be very large, depending on the company.
Scale
Some years ago, data privacy was just a legal compliance issue hardly considered by the companies. Today, it’s on top of the compliance agenda for all sizes companies and across all sectors.
The GDPR was created to better regulate large companies, like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, but they also apply to small companies. Although this might seem frightening at first, business owners must understand that the laws don’t treat all businesses the same way.
The law specifically emphasizes that businesses are required to take “reasonable steps/measures/means” that “takes account of the size” of the company. In other words, it’s all about balance. While huge corporations will be particularly held to very high standards of data privacy, smaller companies will need to take precautions to protect their users’ data that are appropriate to their size.
Free Flow of Data
One of the most overlooked, and most valuable, advantages of GDPR is that it allows for the free flow of data between countries that comply with its regulations. Once the European Commission declares a country “data protection safe,” it joins the community of countries that can freely move and process their data internationally.
Several countries have already met the regulations and joined this community, including Japan, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, and Switzerland, among others. Other countries, such as Australia and Mexico, are currently negotiating with the EU to be designated a “data protection safe” country as well. There are countless opportunities for businesses as a result of this new ability to send and use data freely among compliant countries.
Trust, Consistency, & Customer Satisfaction
Just as many business owners are concerned about the effects that the new regulations will have on their companies, customers are also concerned and confused about what the new law means for their consent and personal data. This is a perfect opportunity for businesses to stand out as trustworthy, transparent, and secure. More than ever before, information security is the number one concern for customers.
Did you know that just 25% of consumers recently interviewed by the PwC network believe that companies handle their sensitive personal data responsibly? And, only 15% believe that the companies who have their data will use it to improve their lives?
There is now a fundamental lack of trust between businesses and their customers regarding privacy data, with 87% of consumers stating that they will not continue to interact with businesses that prove they can’t secure private information.
By positively applying regulations, businesses can build faith in their brand and gain an advantage over competitors.
With a consumer-based approach in mind, businesses that comply with the regulations and are transparent with their customers will be able to turn GDPR into an opportunity rather than a restriction.
How we can help
Changing your perspective to think of the GDPR as an opportunity, not a burden, will not happen overnight. But it’s smart to be proactive. The Data Breach Management Tool provides a cloud-based solution for timely and accurate data breach incident reporting. DBMT allows Data Protection officers and privacy teams to rapidly respond to data breaches in the right way, thereby reducing the risk of massive penalties.
We work with small and medium-sized enterprises as well as large organisations. Would you like to learn more about what we can do for your company? Please send us a message or drop a request in the comments. We look forward to hearing from you!