A guide to understanding UK GDPR compliance for your business
If you run your own business, it is important that you have a GDPR representative on hand to deal with personal information.
That could be information about suppliers, your own staff, or customers. Regardless, it is essential to stick to certain data regulations.
These regulations can be tricky to follow and understand, and sometimes the best option is to appoint a DPO or GDPR representative externally rather than appointing internally.
This article will discuss GDPR in more detail and why outsourcing DPO services is so important.
What is the Data Protection Act 2018?
The Data Protection Act 2018 is UK legislation created to protect the privacy of personal data. It supersedes the 1998 version of this act and incorporates GDPR within UK law.
This act offers the general public more control over their personal data and attempts to simplify regulations for businesses.
What does the Data Protection Act mean for my business?
UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act apply to all businesses that have gotten established in the UK.
The easiest way to understand how this act affects you is to consider how your business currently deals with personal data. Many businesses consider how they handle customer data, but many forget to consider aspects such as supplier data or the data of past and present employees.
If you gather this type of data often, you must make sure you are complying with UK GDPR. That includes any information stored on your computer, phone, the cloud, or a spreadsheet.
It covers any data you collect digitally or manually and must be followed to the letter, or you risk prosecution.
Even for small companies, it is expected that they follow the law, and the responsibility of handling data correctly is theirs and theirs alone.
GDPR should not be looked at as an unnecessary or detrimental hurdle to jump over. In fact, if handled and marketed correctly, a strong GDPR system can attract even more customers to your business.
If you show your customers full transparency about the measures you take to protect their data from getting stolen or misused, this level of trust can go a long way to developing more customers or more loyal existing customers.
The Data Protection Act – employers’ responsibilities
You have several responsibilities as an employer. For starters, workers must be able to access any information your business holds on them.
Secondly, employers must also ensure staff stick to data protection regulations as part of their jobs.
Any data controllers for the business have several essential responsibilities and need to stick to the seven data protection principles.
Seven Data Protection Act principles
If your business handles personal data, you are in charge of ensuring you act in accordance with the seven principles laid out by the DPA.
- Personal data is processed fairly, lawfully, and transparently: To comply, you need to make your business name visible, outline how your customer’s data will be used, and that they can access and amend their data at any time.
- Personal data can only be processed for legitimate, specified, explicit reasons: You must show why you are gathering personal data and your intentions with that data.
- Personal data needs to be relevant, adequate, but not excessive: You must only collect the basic required amount of data and not collect more than you need.
- Personal data needs to be accurate: Any information you store needs to be accurate and up to date.
- Personal data must be removed if no longer needed: You must not keep personal data longer than required.
- Personal data has to be securely processed: Steps must be taken to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of personal data.
- You are responsible: As the controller of the data, you are responsible for GDPR, and therefore it is your job to show compliance.
The benefits of outsourcing DPO services
There are many benefits that can be had from outsourcing your DPO service needs.
DPO services are highly reliable and efficient
For starters, the right DPO service will be extremely reliable and handle any issues efficiently and effectively. When you work with a high-quality DPO service, you know that issues will be dealt with quickly, rather than it hanging over you for long periods.
You can be confident that GDPR will be handled properly
As well as handling issues quickly, an effective DPO service will also have an extensive understanding of the GDPR rules and regulations. Therefore you can rest easy knowing that any issue will be handled correctly and within the rules, and you can focus your efforts on other aspects of your business.
External companies can be held liable for certain principles
Finally, you can also be confident that if anything were to go awry, DPO services would also take some of the responsibility for this. While you certainly won’t want or expect any issues to occur regarding the personal information you store, knowing this can take some of the pressure and worry off your shoulders.
