The Journey After May 25th’s GDPR Compliance
Experts argue that the GDPR compliance journey doesn’t reach the end of the road on May 25th, but that May 25th is merely a signpost along the way.
“The regulators understand that it is very difficult to be compliant [with GDPR] by 25th May, but the regulators will expect you to have started the journey, and have a plan, and have assessed what are the high-risk areas in relation to the way you process data,” Robert Bond states in a recent podcast for the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE).
UK Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham takes a longer viewpoint on her office’s blog.
“Unlike planning for the Y2K deadline, GDPR preparation doesn’t end on 25 May 2018 – it requires ongoing effort.”
Wherever you are on your journey, two tools can help you ensure your ongoing compliance program efforts are effective and structured. These tools involve implementing policy management and information governance solutions.
For policy management, Mitratech’s PolicyHub helps get your policies and procedures to the right members of staff with minimal impact on your day-to-day operations. This ability is critical to an effective compliance program and will be instrumental in communicating the requirements of GDPR to your employees, especially to those employees most impacted by the new restrictions.
PolicyHub’s simple interface and operation means there is no need for end user training, so policies and procedures, such as a data breach procedure, are easy for employees to find and confirm that they have read and understood.
One of Mitratech’s retail customers recently implemented PolicyHub to enable them to quickly deploy a GDPR solution for managing their policies while reducing the impact to their overall business. It also allows the customer to build structured processes to amend and approve consent forms and provides compliance reporting for internal stakeholders and external auditors.
As an information governance solution, Mitratech’s DataStore allows you to structure your information, apply robust security and enforce privacy by design while giving you visibility of the data you hold and how it is used. With detailed auditing, DataStore can give you detailed insight into how your data is accessed and used throughout the business. Retention policies ensure that information can be automatically removed and processes around the right to erasure can be structured and controlled.
In the financial services sector, one of our clients selected DataStore to transfer large quantities of paper used in their processes to electronic data they can clearly protect and control through the built-in security model. In addition, the customer saved on their printing and storage needs while being sure that they have control of their data footprint and managing their customers’ information appropriately.
Mitratech’s governance, risk and compliance solutions can help your GDPR controls become more structured and efficient in giving you a robust and defensible data security strategy. With the help of these solutions, you can be confident of meeting your regulatory requirements throughout your compliance journey.
Curious about how our solutions can help you be GDPR compliant in a way that also benefits your business? Connect with us and let us help you plan for your compliance future.
