GDPR Overview

The General Data Protection Regulation is here. The GDPR is designed to improve personal data protections and increase organizational accountability for data breaches. With potential fines of up to four percent of global revenues or 20 million EUR (whichever is higher), the regulation certainly has teeth. No matter where your organization is located, if it processes or controls the personal data of EU residents, you need to be ready.

Specific Requirements

Some of the key provisions of the GDPR require organizations to:

• Process personal data in a manner that ensures its security, “including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing” (Article 5)
• Implement technical and organizational measures to ensure data security appropriate to the level of risk, including “pseudonymisation and encryption of personal data." (Article 32)
• Have in place "a process for regularly testing, assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of technical and organizational measures for ensuring the security of the processing." (Article 32)
• Communicate “without undue delay” personal data breaches to the subjects of such breaches "when the breach is likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms" of these individuals. (Article 34)
• Safeguard against the "unauthorized disclosure of, or access to, personal data." (Article 32)