The new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been underway for four years and it will redefine how we process personal data. But what is GDPR actually all about?

In short, GDPR is about identifying which personal data you obtain, how you process it, who has access to it, and how to delete this data if requested to do so.

The new EU regulation came into force on 25th of May 2018, bringing with it new regulation, which means that the supervisory authorities will have more drastic measures of enforcing the new rules. You can be fined up to 20 million euros or 4% of your annual global revenue – whatever the highest amount is. The regulation applies to all companies that have employee data or personal information about customers, which can simply be a name of a customer, an email address, or a date of birth. Most companies are therefore affected by the GDPR. Non-EU companies are also included if they offer goods or services to EU citizens.

The main purpose of the regulation is to harmonize the rules within the EU and to protect individuals' control over their own data.

The general data protection regulation has dramatically changed the requirements for companies regarding the handling of personal data and other sensitive data. The main initiatives in the regulation include the so called right to be forgotten, which means that companies must be able to delete personal data if any person requires it and furthermore the company should be able to document the deletion. The regulation includes other measures such as data portability, which means that individuals may require the data about themselves to be presented to them in a structured format. Another rule in the GDPR is in the event of a personal data breach, where it is critical that the company must notify the supervisory authority within 72 hours.

A survey conducted by TrustArc in June shows that 64% of UK companies have not begun implementation of their GDPR compliance programs yet. If you are one of them, then here is a 5 step guide on how to the get started on preparing for GDPR compliance.

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