- After 25 May, businesses may suffer from a mental information security hangover
- What does the future hold now that the preparations are complete, and the rules have come into force?
- A security expert from Neupart offers advice and recommend - among other things - that future information security work be organised and compiled into an annual cycle
Due both to an eagerness to do things correctly and a fear of doing things wrong, many companies prepare far more records of their processing activities than necessary. A Neupart expert explains how you can group together your processing activities and save yourself many hours of (wasted) work.
Picture this: it’s the end of May and you’ve managed to fulfil the criteria of the EU Data Protection Regulation - you’ve achieved GDPR compliance. But how do you make sure you stay compliant in the future?
No doubt the GDPR implementation project was big and required a team effort. There might even have been extra resources allocated, as everyone realised the importance of getting this right. But now that the deadline has passed, and the goal has been met, your co-workers need to get back to their day-to-day assignments. So how do you successfully maintain continuous GDPR compliance with half the people, and maybe even half the resources?
- Guidance and good advice for carrying out a DPIA
For some organisations, the DPIA is high on the list of GDPR related assignments that need to be sorted. But for many, the DPIA can actually wait – or at least be simplified so that it doesn’t require so many resources. The Director of Neupart explains when and how you should carry out a DPIA.
The EU Data Protection Regulation states that you must train your employees in handling - and securing - personal data. However, it doesn't say anything about how you should train your employees in handling personal data.
"That part is open to interpretation, so you have to get creative," says Lone Forland, Neupart's product specialist who also works with information security campaigns.
The EU Data Protection Regulation is a good example of just how important it is to define a challenge before you start trying to solve it.
Essentially, GDPR is about organisations protecting their personal data. However, before you can figure out how your organisation protects its personal data, you need to know why the organisation has this data to begin with. Understanding the reason is basically a pre-requisite for taking any action.
Most organisations know that performing a risk assessment is good practice. However, not all organisation actually do risk assessments, and those who do, often approach them in the wrong way. All too often, risk assessments are treated as a project that can be finished and that will be that, whereas the reality is that risk assessment and risk treatment are an ongoing process.
Risk Assessment And Risk Treatment Are a Process
Risk assessment is a process, not a one-off project. The reasons for this can be boiled down to these three points:
- Registering your data processing activities is enough.
Are you busy preparing for the GDPR, but getting stuck carrying out a dataflow analysis? Then you need to read this: When it comes to complying with the GDPR, a comprehensive and detailed dataflow analysis is not necessary or mandatory!
It is uncertain where the speculation started, but at some point, people started talking about the necessity of performing lengthy dataflow analyses to be compliant with the GPDR.
Likely, this resulted from an embellishment of the regulation requirements, and somehow it seems to have stuck around. The fact is - the Data Protection Regulation does not explicitly mention nor require you to carry out a dataflow analysis! It does however state that you need to “maintain a record” of your relevant “processing activities”. One could argue semantics here, but it is easy to see where exaggerations and embellishments can be easily introduced.
In less than a year, the EU Data Protection Regulation comes into force. That’s ample time – if you manage it wisely, that is. Here are three useful tips that will help you prioritise your tasks and effectively make sure your organisation is prepared come 25th of May, 2018.
The EU data protection regulation is about getting those who process personal data used to the right processes. However, when it comes to compliance, the GDPR is very much about getting used to doing what is necessary. No more, no less.
At Neupart we have identified three areas in which you can save time, money, and worrying: