Data Protection Day 2019: How compliant are you?

28 January marks the 12th annual Data Protection Day, launched by the Council of Europe in 2006. The day marks the date on which the Council of Europe’s data protection convention, known as “Convention 108” was opened to signature. This was the first legally binding international treaty dealing with privacy and data protection.

Since the last Data Protection Day, the EU has made great strides in ensuring businesses respect and protect individuals’ personal data, with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into force on 25 May. The US looks set to follow suit with the California Consumer Privacy Act, which has a lot of similarities to GDPR, coming into force in January 2020. Further, Google’s recent €50 million fine by France and cyber security breaches reportedly costing UK victims over £190,000 a day shows still have a long way to go to ensure businesses truly protect personal data.

While some organisations are slowly working towards complying with GDPR, others are proactively reviewing their policies, processes and training. To help with compliance, the VinciWorks GDPR resource page is regularly updated with policy templates, five minute knowledge checks and direct access to all our GDPR webinars.

GDPR resources

Micro-course: 6 Principles of Data Protection

GDPR Knowledge Check

GDPR Guide

GDPR Data Protection Policy Template

All GDPR resources

How are you managing your GDPR compliance requirements?

GDPR added a significant compliance burden on DPOs and data processors. Data breaches must be reported to the authorities within 72 hours, each new data processing activity needs to be documented and Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) must be carried out for processing that is likely to result in a high risk to individuals. Penalties for breaching GDPR can reach into the tens of millions of Euros.

“In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”