The most significant data protection legislation update for 20 years is coming in 2018 and, if you collect or store the data of European citizens, your business will be affected. It’s called the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and when implemented, will ultimately simplify business practices across the whole of Europe as well as for UK companies.
GDPR will ensure the proper management and destruction of data, applying to companies that process client information as well as service and cloud providers who store it. Non-compliance can result in fines of up to 4% of turnover.
This legislation will require new workflows to be implemented, whereby the security of data takes top priority. It will require IT managers to know not only where their data is stored, but also have processes in place to track data, as opposed to the traditional static list of assets not fully representative of all devices within a company.
Taking Action
Many companies have already started working toward GDPR compliance via the implementation of systems and processes for the purpose of mitigating data risk online. However, there are many potential data risks with assets that have reached their end of use, as well as those stored offline. The GDPR provides guidelines with which this data can be managed and secured.
Protecting Your Company’s Brand
The GDPR will make the proper management and destruction of data a priority for many companies, whether national, multinational or global, making now the best time to review how your company’s data is handled. The importance of having a process for the secure disposal of your end-of-life data and assets cannot be understated.
More Collaboration With Other Departments
Some companies preparing for GDPR may find that their process needs to change. In companies where the IT department is still largely independent of other departments, it will now need to collaborate more closely with those teams to ensure the security of shared data.
Those companies whose IT departments are already communicating with other teams will need to do more of the same in order to comply with the new legislation. This will mean convincing senior management to invest further into these endeavours.
Professional & Secure Asset Sanitisation, Cleaning & Destruction
Absolute IT’s methods for data and asset destruction are many and varied. .
Where destruction is needed, we offer a shredding service whereby all assets, including mobile phones and DLT tapes, can be shredded to 6mm particulate, making them completely inaccessible. Not only is the destruction of these assets completely secure, but we also ensure that the strictest environmental standards are adhered to and offer full transparency.
If you wish to sell or reuse assets, our data cleaning service safely removes your stored data. We ensure complete data erasure of all magnetic hard drives with CPA (CESG) accredited Blancco software, which is the fastest and most effective data destruction product on the market today. Blancco returns all of your data storage devices to a previously ‘clean’ state, allowing you to realise the highest value possible.
Don’t Wait To Comply
GDPR legislation will be far-reaching, being one of the biggest issues that IT departments will face this year and next. In order to properly prepare for this, your budget will need to include the costs of those tools which will be needed to achieve compliance.
There is no better time than now to look at your current processes to determine where data exists, how it is being stored and whom is being tasked with your asset erasure, storage and disposal.
