When enacted in 2018, the GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation, shocked the business community. This required every company doing business with clients in the European Union to reconsider how they handle client data. These regulations were created to safeguard consumers and their personal info.
A single error can have severe consequences for your website and business because this is one of the tightest and most extensive sets of data privacy laws in the world. This is why any company that provides services to customers in the EU is strongly advised to invest in GDPR consultancy. These service providers can relieve you of a lot of stress by making sure that your company complies with GDPR requirements.
The Impact of GDPR on Business
The GDPR is a body of laws and rules created to safeguard the personal information of residents of EU member states. While the statutes protect EU residents, they also apply to enterprises worldwide. Therefore, you must abide by GDPR rules even if your business is based mainly in the UK.
Compliance With GDPR Complying with GDPR may seem complex and daunting at first. Still, its advantages for your business can be many: building customer trust, gaining a competitive edge and making data management more skillfully handled are all tangible rewards of adhering to its requirements.
GDPR aims to enhance transparency and accountability for companies handling personal data. However, before GDPR’s implementation, businesses often failed to prioritise critical aspects of data protection, such as establishing who their data processors are or clearly outlining how they would use personal information.
However, many companies needed to keep detailed records of their data processing activities – this inadequacy was made evident by GDPR’s stringent enforcement. Over 1,200 fines have been levied, totalling $2.5 billion overall! Under GDPR, penalties may reach 4 per cent of global revenue.
GDPR emphasises the necessity of obtaining customer consent before collecting personal data from EU and UK residents, making this particularly crucial for companies that collect this type of data from them. It requires explicit rather than pre-checked boxes or implied consent; additionally, it needs a process allowing individuals to update preferences or requests to be forgotten.
Transparency and accountability can create trust with both existing and potential customers. Consumers have become more wary about how their personal information is handled; demonstrating that you take data protection seriously will allow you to build brand loyalty while outstripping the competition.
The GDPR is highly severe, in addition to having a lot of laws and regulations. This implies that breaking any of these rules could result in legal consequences, harm to your reputation, and penalties of up to 5% of your annual financial turnover, in addition to other penalties.
This is why the GDPR must be followed and complied with by all companies and websites that gather data on their EU clients. The problem is that achieving this can be challenging, especially with all the rules and specifications. So let’s look at what GDPR consultancy for your company comprises to understand why you would want to consider doing so.
Why You Need A GDPR Consultancy For Your Business
You must adhere to the GDPR rules if your website caters to EU users and collects user data. Below, we’ll look at some benefits of collaborating with a GDPR consultant firm.
Facilitate GDPR Compliance
The first big plus of hiring a GDPR consultant is that it simplifies GDPR compliance, which is why we strongly advise firms to do so. You’ll discover that trying to handle all GDPR compliance needs internally will involve too much time and workforce investment to comprehend the intricacies of the law, gather all documentation, and continuously monitor your website. A GDPR consultant is a valuable guide to provide help and expertise on the regulations, help you understand the implications of the law, and provide solutions to ensure compliance. They can also help you stay up to date with any changes in the regulations, ensuring that your business remains compliant.
However, suppose you hire a team of GDPR consultants to take care of your compliance needs. In that case, you’ll discover that you’ll have more time and money to devote to other elements of your website or business that are likely to produce a higher return on investment than what you would have paid for GDPR consulting. Additionally, GDPR compliance can provide peace of mind and protect your business from potential legal action. Also, it can help to build trust with your customers, as they know that their data is being safeguarded.
GDPR in the UK After Brexit
After voting to leave the European Union (EU) in June 2016, much uncertainty existed regarding its effects on business travel and data protection – particularly concerning GDPR implementation in the UK.
As part of its EU Withdrawal Agreement obligations, the UK developed its own domestic law called the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) Regulations 2019 (UK GDPR). There are few structural or content differences between both laws; however, certain key areas differ significantly.
Therefore, most businesses still must abide by the same regulations in the UK or EEA. This includes adhering to basic rules such as informing people of what data is being collected, why and with whom. A representative must also be appointed within the UK who will deal with inquiries or complaints related to compliance with the law by their company.
As part of Brexit, UK GDPR was implemented into UK law, replacing references to EU GDPR with UK-specific references. ICO continues as its highest supervisory authority but also assumes additional functions from the EU. The Secretary of State now has the power to determine and revoke adequacy decisions for the UK.
After Brexit, the UK will become a third country, meaning countries outside of the EEA, and BCRs or SCCs must be established before any personal data transfers from citizens/residents of those nations are permitted.
As part of its efforts to ease this transition, the EU has already issued an adequacy decision for the UK for 2021 which will automatically renew itself in 2025. Meanwhile, ICO is working on setting up SCCs that can be used for transfers to and from the UK.
If you need clarification on this change, Naq can assist. Their experts can handle all the details so that you can focus on expanding your business while they manage all the details for you – sign up for a free trial now to find out more!
Reduce the Chance of Loss
Running a business entails several financial risks, and GDPR compliance eliminates one of the significant dangers that could have disastrous financial repercussions for your firm. Therefore, you must destroy all threats to manage a profitable firm with threats.
Take Away
If your company has a website that gathers information from EU clients, you must handle that information with the utmost caution and transparency. Failure to do so would constitute GDPR noncompliance, which might be disastrous for your business.
For this reason, we advise consulting a GDPR consultation business for advice. They’ll handle every aspect of your company’s GDPR compliance, so you and your staff won’t have to. But, of course, they’ll also take care of everything.