The 25th of may 2018 is closing in quickly on all of us. Yes, there is no point in denying that this might be the single biggest day of the year for all Europeans and those of us who work together with European companies or customers.
The new European data protection laws will go into effect as of the end of may. Okay, there is really not point in acting surprised about that. It has been known to each and every one of us for good over two years now. But the thing is, most of us have tried to simply forget about it for two years.
And with good reason.
A wave of change is about to hit us
The GDPR is probabl the largest change in data protection that we see in the next few decades. It covers all European citizens, their data rights and tells us how we “should” work with data. It sets new security standards across the board in every single industry and forces us to look at who has access to what and how we work with our own and consumer data.
And in all fairness, we could say that there is nothing wrong with that right? We have collectively looked the other way when it comes to data protection for a long time and this is the first real wake up call for all of us.
In light of recent events surrounding Facebook, it seems as though we sort of had this coming. And although the larger US-tech companies are hesitant to cave in to the GDPR, there are obvious monetary incentives (fines) that could force a considerable wave within even the most hesitant of industries.
Less than 10 days left
Together with our clients and partners we are counting down the days on when the GDPR will hit us.
But we don’t really know what the full impact of this legislation will truly be. Some countries, such as Austria, have started to loosen the regulations regarding GDPR for some professions and industries already. It is not very unlikely that other countries will follow suit when they notice that parts of the regulations are very difficult if not impossible to implement and uphold.
Not only companies and consumers will be hit by this regulation, but govermental organizations as well. And as far as the rumors go, very few govermental organizations will be done with the full implementation of the GDPR regulations by May 25th of this year.
Not sure if your company is meeting “all” requirements?
No problem, most companies don’t know where they stand when it comes to GDPR (DSGVO as it is called in the German speaking language area).
If you would like we can surely share some of our insights and have a look at your current organizational setup – from a purely pragmatic point of view. We are not lawyers, but we can at least tell you which pain-points might be coming your way and explain why it is important to address them as soon as possible.
Time is ticking… And even if the bomb doesn’t go off on May 25th (just yet) we can count on it going off in the months to follow.
