Ways to prepare your business for GDPR
As a business owner, one of the most challenging problems you are likely to come up against in the near future is dealing with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules. These rules, set up by the European Union, are game changers with relation to what they will do to the normal business who collects customer data.
If this sounds like your business, you will want to try and carry out the following preparation steps. Each of these will make it much easier for you to help manage the unique changes that GDPR presses upon you.
It’s not a bad thing, though. GDPR is a fundamental necessity in a world where private data had lost much of its protection. However, preparing your business by carrying out the following changes is very important as it will ensure you are ready for this important regulatory adjustment.
Get in touch with every client
First off, you should look to contact every single client that your business has an evaluate all of your policy changes with them. Make sure that you fully make it clear how data will be stored, processed and used by your business – as well as where data will be stored and also how data will be used on a longer-term basis.
Such changes are very much worth your time making, and will go some way to making sure you can let people know that your business is ready to get serious about GDPR compliance.
Start moving data accordingly
Start to take a look at what kind of business data that you have, and what might be impacted by new GDPR rulings. For example, any kind of EU citizen who you work with might be found in your workplace contracts, your financial records or even your purchase histories. You should look to find all data on these people, work out how and where it is processed and then make sure that the right people have total access.
Most people will feel much better working with a business who has put in place a clear policy to separate their data accordingly.
Consider using a GDPR Shield
If you are not able to make the concessions needed, then you should almost certainly invest in a GDPR Shield. This would block anyone from the European Union using your website. If you are not able to give an EU citizen the protection they need, then you should prepare your website the other way and stop them gaining access.
This will obviously hurt your ability to trade across Europe though, so make sure you can afford to take the hit if you wish to avoid any kind of regulatory challenge in time.
Bring in a GDPR expert
Of course, the best way to be in total control of GDPR is to look closely at finding someone who can lead the change. A GDPR compliance officer would make sense, allowing you to take a close in-house analysis of all of your issues and then work around them as quickly as you can.
Remember, the sooner the better. GDPR started in May 2018 so you are already out of time to get GDPR-ready. Hire someone soon, though, and you can soon make up for lots of time you’ve lost.
Educate your staff
You should immediately look to get all of your staff GDPR trained. Even one person making a mistake could harm your entire company. For that reason, we recommend that you start to take in-house tuition and education on GDPR: it might be wise to bring in a third party to help get your staff ready for GDPR.
The challenges of leaving GDPR to be self-taught to your staff is dangerous. With fans that could rise into the millions of euros with repeated failures, we recommend that you get everyone on your staff to be ready for GDPR as soon as you can.
Begin a clear analysis
The best thing that you can do, though, is to undertake a clear in-house analysis of your present data collection and data protection standards. If you can get on top of what your business has to do now, then you should be much more likely to manage through GDPR changes without any issues.
We fully recommend that you undertake an in-house analysis as soon as you can. The more that you can look at what you do well and what has to change, the sooner you can make changes and ensure you are fully GDPR compliant. The folks at Online Shopping have created the below infographic “55 Things You Need To Know About GDPR”.
