General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): Meaning and Rules

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GDPR is to give individuals greater control over their personal data and to harmonize data protection laws across the EU member states. By doing so, it aims to enhance the protection of individuals' privacy rights.

Under GDPR, personal data is defined as any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. This includes not only obvious identifiers such as names and addresses but also less obvious ones like IP addresses. It covers a wide range of personal data, from basic contact information to sensitive data such as health records and biometric data.

Key Principles of GDPR

The foundation of GDPR lies in its key principles. They set the benchmark for data processing practices and define the rights of consumers. Here are the principal components of GDPR:

• Lawfulness, fairness, and transparency: Data processing must be legal, fair, and transparent to the consumer. Clear information about the processing should be provided.
• Purpose limitation: Personal data can only be collected for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes.
• Data minimization: Only the necessary data that is adequate and relevant should be collected and processed.
• Accuracy: Businesses are obligated to keep personal data accurate and up-to-date.
• Storage limitation: Personal data should only be kept for as long as necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected.
• Integrity and confidentiality: Personal data must be processed securely to ensure its protection against unauthorized or unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction, or damage.

Steps to GDPR Implementation:-

GDPR implementation is an often complex process involving organizational strategy, information technology, and legal compliance.

It requires an in-depth understanding of the regulation, a clear identification of the business’s role and obligations, and careful planning and execution.

By implementing GDPR, businesses can ensure data privacy, avoid hefty penalties, and build credibility with consumers.

Though GDPR implementation can seem daunting, breaking it down into clear, manageable steps can make the process more straightforward.

Here’s a step-by-step approach for businesses to ensure robust GDPR compliance:

Understand the GDPR

Every journey toward GDPR compliance begins with a thorough understanding of the regulation. Familiarize yourself with the GDPR’s principles, rights of data subjects, and obligations of data controllers and processors. Recognize the potential penalties for non-compliance and the importance of maintaining data privacy.

Appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO)

If your business conducts large-scale data processing or processes sensitive data, you may need to appoint a DPO. This individual will be responsible for overseeing data protection strategy and GDPR compliance.

Conduct a Data Audit

Understand what data you collect, how you collect it, where it’s stored, and who has access to it. Conducting a data audit allows you to identify gaps in your current data protection mechanisms and devise strategies to address them.

Implement Data Protection Measures

Based on the data audit findings, implement appropriate measures to ensure data protection. This might include updating privacy policies, securing data storage and transfer, and improving data subject consent mechanisms.

Train Your Staff

Staff training is crucial for GDPR compliance. Ensure all staff members understand the GDPR principles and their responsibilities regarding data protection. Regular training can also help prevent data breaches.

Establish Data Breach Procedures

In the event of a data breach, quick and effective action is vital. Develop procedures to detect, report, and investigate a personal data breach. It’s important to be able to notify the relevant supervisory authority and, where necessary, the affected data subjects.

Maintain Documentation

Maintaining comprehensive records of your data processing activities is an essential aspect of GDPR compliance. Documentation should detail what data is held, where it came from, who it’s shared with, and what protective measures are in place.

GDPR Documentation Requirements

Data Protection Policies: Businesses must establish and document comprehensive data protection policies that outline their commitment to data privacy, data processing activities, data subjects’ rights, and procedures in place to protect data.

Records of Processing Activities (RoPA): Both data controllers and processors must maintain detailed records of their data processing activities. The RoPA should include information such as the purpose of processing, categories of data subjects and personal data, data recipients, and transfers of personal data to third countries or international businesses.

Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA): DPIAs are required for high-risk data processing activities. They help identify and minimize data protection risks. A DPIA must document everything from the nature, scope, and purpose of data processing to the risks it presents to data subjects and the measures in place to address those risks.

Data Breach Records: In the unfortunate event of a data breach, businesses must document all details, including the nature of the breach, the categories and number of data subjects affected, the possible consequences, and the measures taken to mitigate the breach.

GDPR Compliance Checklist

1. Map Your Data and Conduct a RoPA

The first step is to conduct a thorough data audit to identify the types of personal data you collect, the purposes for which you process it, and the storage duration. This audit will help you understand the data flow within your organization and identify any potential compliance gaps.

During the data audit, consider the various sources from which you collect personal data. This could include customer registration forms, online purchases, email subscriptions, or any other interactions with individuals. By mapping out the data flow, you can gain a holistic view of how personal data enters, moves within, and exits your organization. Doing this manually can be highly challenging, so it’s a best practice to use an automated data mapping tool instead.

2. Identify Lawful Basis for Data Processing

Under the GDPR, businesses must have a valid lawful basis for processing personal data. The GDPR lists out the following as acceptable lawful bases:

• The individual's freely given, clear, and unambiguous consent.
• The performance of a contract, such as for processing personal data to fulfill orders, provide services, or manage employment contracts.
• Compliance with a legal obligation, or when you are required by law to process personal data. This can include compliance with tax laws, employment laws, or other legal obligations imposed by regulatory authorities.
• Protection of vital interests, or when processing personal data is necessary to protect someone's life.
• Performance of a task carried out in the public interest, or when data processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or exercise official authority.
• Legitimate interests pursued by the data controller or a third party, so long as the processing does not override the data subject’s rights and interests.

3. Implement Data Protection Measures

The GDPR mandates that organizations implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security of personal data. This includes measures such as pseudonymization, encryption, access controls, regular data backups, and staff training on data protection protocols.

Pseudonymization involves replacing identifying information with a pseudonym, making it more difficult to link the data back to an individual without additional information. Encryption, on the other hand, involves converting data into a coded form that can only be accessed with a decryption key, providing an additional layer of protection.

Access controls should be implemented to ensure that only authorized individuals have access to personal data. This can be achieved through user authentication mechanisms, role-based access controls, and regular access reviews to prevent unauthorized access or accidental data breaches.

Regular data backups are crucial to ensure that personal data can be restored in case of any data loss or system failures. These backups should be securely stored and regularly tested to ensure their effectiveness.

Lastly, staff training on data protection protocols is essential to ensure that employees understand their responsibilities and are aware of the potential risks associated with personal data processing. Training sessions should cover topics such as data handling procedures, incident reporting, and the importance of maintaining confidentiality.

4. Establish Notice and Consent Mechanisms

One of the key requirements of GDPR is obtaining valid consent from individuals for processing their personal data. Businesses should review their consent mechanisms to ensure that they meet the GDPR standards, such as being freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous.

When obtaining consent, it is important to provide individuals with clear and understandable information about the purposes for which their data will be processed. This includes informing them about any third parties with whom their data may be shared and their rights regarding data access, rectification, and erasure. In fact, you must provide this notice in order to respect the rights EU citizens receive under the GDPR: specifically, the right to be informed.

If you collect information directly from the data subject, then you’ll need to inform them about the collection and intended use of their data right at the moment of collection. You could receive personal data in other ways, such as through a vendor. If that’s the case, then you’ll need to inform the data subject about your processing activities in less than a month’s time.

Consent mechanisms should also provide individuals with an easy way to withdraw their consent at any time. This can be achieved through simple and accessible opt-out options, such as unsubscribe links in email communications or account settings on online platforms. Generally, businesses rely on consent management platforms, or CMPs, to operationalize data processing consent.

Regularly reviewing and updating consent mechanisms is essential to ensure ongoing compliance with GDPR. As your business evolves and introduces new processing activities, it is important to assess whether existing consents cover these activities or if additional consents need to be obtained.

5. Develop a DSAR Process

Some of the privacy rights provided by the GDPR require a response from businesses controlling or processing their data. Broadly, they’re referred to as data subject access requests (DSARs; the right of access is just one right, but the term is often used to refer to all subject rights requests).

Establishing a process for the timely, efficient, and accurate fulfillment of these rights is essential. In fact, businesses have just one month from receipt of a DSAR to complete it—it’s possible to extend this deadline, but you should really be aiming to fulfill every DSAR within the initial timeframe since requesting an extension creates extra risk.

The following are examples of the sorts of requests that data subjects may make under the GDPR.

• The right to access their data.
• The right to have inaccurate or incomplete personal data rectified and completed.
• The right to be forgotten and request the erasure of personal data related to them on specific grounds within 30 days.
• The right to restrict processing.
• The right to transfer personal data from one electronic processing system to and into another, without being prevented from doing so by the data controller.
• The right to object to how their information is used for marketing, sales, or non-service-related purposes.
• The right to not be subject to solely automated decisions.

6. Evaluate International Data Transfer Needs and Frameworks

Will your organization need to transfer data outside of the EU? If so, you’ll need to comply with Chapter 5 of the GDPR, which lays out the circumstances under which international data transfers are compliant.

Generally, you’ll want to see if the European Commission has issued an adequacy decision for the country you want to transfer data to. In essence, that’s the Commission stating that the data protection laws or the international commitments made by that country indicate that EU citizens’ data will receive adequate protection once transferred.

This can be a complex and fluid scenario, however. In the case of the U.S., for example, the Commission has deemed that transferred data wouldn’t be adequately protected due to the degree of access that U.S. intelligence agencies have to U.S.-based organizations’ data.

To achieve adequacy in the eyes of the Commission, a variety of frameworks have been put into place to ensure EU citizens’ data receives the protection it deserves in the U.S. First, there were the Safe Harbor provisions—these were eventually deemed insufficient by the European Court of Justice. Then, there was the Privacy Shield—this too, was struck down by the Court. As of this writing, the third (and hopefully final) framework—the Data Privacy Framework, or DPF—is still in place. Although the DPF does improve upon its predecessors, time will tell whether this international agreement provides an adequate level of protection for EU citizens’ data.

Even if the DPF is deemed invalid, or if you want to transfer data to another country that has not gained an adequacy decision, there are other avenues. These include:

• Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs), which enable international organizations to transfer data internally from one country’s office to another’s.
• Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs), which are contractual agreements between the sending and receiving organizations that ensure the individual organizations adhere to a certain standard of data protection. These are not always ironclad depending on the data protection practices of the other country, however.
• Derogations in specific situations, which include a short list of alternative bases for compliant data transfers. These are things like the data subject’s consent, the performance of a contract, protecting an individual’s vital interests, and so on.
• And several other niche international data transfer mechanisms.

For the most part, organizations will rely on either an adequacy decision or SCCs. The other methods for international data transfers are highly specific and unlikely to apply to the bulk of organizations.

7. Secure Required Personnel

Under the GDPR, your organization will need to keep certain experts on staff depending on the nature of your organization, its business, and its location.

Notably, you may be required to hire a Data Protection Officer (DPO). If your core activities involve processing sensitive data on a large scale, or if it involves large-scale monitoring of individuals, then you’ll need a DPO. So, a small medical practice that processes its patients’ personal data likely doesn’t need a DPO, but a hospital processing large sets of sensitive data would.

If your business is external to the EU but you process EU citizens’ data, odds are you’ll be required to establish a GDPR representative. This individual needs to be based in one of the EU member states, and they’ll serve as your organization’s liaison to EU data protection authorities. Fortunately, you don’t have to open up a new European branch of your business to retain a GDPR representative; there are organizations that can provide this service for you (including Osano).

8. Review and Iterate

It can be tempting to think of data privacy compliance as a one-and-done activity, but the reality is that compliance is an ongoing process. Your organization and the way your organization processes personal data will change over time. It’s essential that you:

• Keep your data map and RoPA updated.
• Ensure your legal basis for processing remains valid.
• Improve upon your data protection efforts to plug any gaps, keep up with evolving security practices, and adjust as your systems and processes change over time.
• Maintain your privacy policies and notices so that they accurately reflect the reality of your organization’s data processing activities.
• Iterate upon your DSAR workflow to reduce effort, risk, and cost.
• Review international data privacy developments to ensure you can adequately protect EU citizens’ data abroad.
• Maintain adequate staff and plan for associated costs.

Attending all of these requirements at once can be exhausting, especially if you rely on manual, time-consuming processes to carry out your compliance activities. Businesses that rely on Osano for their data mapping, consent management, DSAR workflow, and other difficult but highly automatable compliance requirements regain much-needed time to maintain their GDPR compliance status.