What does May 25th 2017 mean to you? The 40th anniversary of Star Wars being released in cinemas? The 78th birthday of celebrated actor Sir Ian McKellan? National Tap Dance Day in the US? If you do business in Europe and collect personal data, your answer should be that it marked the day when you had exactly a year left to prepare for GDPR.
If you have never heard of GDPR, or the General Data Protection Regulation, you really need to find out about it now. A recent poll of over 2,000 businesses of various sizes conducted by YouGov for Irwin Mitchell found that a shocking 62% of senior decision makers had never heard of GDPR, despite the severe implications for their businesses for non-compliance. The rules, laid down by the European Commission to govern the privacy and security of personal data for business trading in Europe, are mandatory for business of all sizes and will come into effect on May 25th 2018. And no, Brexit won’t save UK businesses from having to comply.
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Businesses can be fined up to €20m or 4% of their global turnover for non-compliance such as a data breach. |
The poll also uncovered some other worrying statistics including:
And if you still don’t think you should worry about GDPR, consider this: 40% of businesses said they would have to cut staff or go out of business entirely if they suffered the maximum fine. For example, one of the main GDPR requirements for UK businesses is that the data losses are reported to the Information Commissioner within 72 hours, so if you don’t have mechanisms in place to detect breaches, the future of your business could be put in jeopardy.
The good news is, there is still time to get ready for GDPR and Foregenix can help you on your journey to compliance. Our Threat Detection service can help your organisation detect and mitigate threats quickly and prevent data breaches, helping you avoid those costly fines that come as part of GDPR.
So, don't bury your head in the sand over GDPR. Contact Foregenix today.
