The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation of the European Union. It became binding and directly applicable in all Member States of the European Union on May 25, 2018. GDPR’s primary goal is to enhance individuals’ control and rights over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business.

What is the main purpose of GDPR?

 

Individuals whose personal data is being processed have important rights under the GDPR, which compels those who process personal data to comply with its obligations. Natural and legal individuals, including companies and governments, who are involved in the processing must follow the rules. Noncompliance could cost them a lot of money (fines are massive), as well as result in legal action, damage to their reputation and most importantly breach of consumer’s trust.

GDPR applies to all companies or organizations that have a presence in the EU and are involved in personal data processing. Companies and organizations dealing with personal data of EU individuals and are based outside of the EU must organize their activities in accordance with the GDPR when processing personal data of EU citizens or residents. It means that the GDPR affects a huge number of people, businesses, government agencies, and others, and that they must be aware of its complexities and responsibilities.

The companies or organizations responsible for collection or processing of personal data are called “Data Controllers” and if they decide to outsource the processing activities of a service provider then such service provider is called “Data Processor”.

Data controllers is accountable to ensure compliance with GDPR and is required to give specific instructions to Data Processor on how to process personal data in a complinat manner with GDPR and applicable privacy laws.

What type of personal information is protected by the General Data Protection Regulation?

 

Definition of personal data is very broad under GDPR and includes any data which may identify an individual. Such data could be but is not limited to the following:

  • Name, address, and ID numbers are all examples of basic identifying information.
  • Location, IP address, cookie data, and RFID tags are examples of web data.
  • Data on health and genetics
  • Biometric information
  • Data about race or ethnicity
  • Sexual preference

What is GDPR and why should you care?

 

GDPR is one of the strictest privacy and security regulation in the world. It is a EU regulation and applies to personal data processing of EU residents and citizens. It applies to all companies and organizations (whether in EU or outside of EU) who process personal data of EU residents and citizens.

GDPR noncompliance can result into massive fines up to €20 million or up to 4% of the annual worldwide turnover. Besides the fines there is more at stake, risk of loss of business and biggest of all loss of consumer trust.

Automating business processes has never been easier

 

Many smart businesses, companies use GDPR compliance obligations to assess how well they’re handling customer and client data storage, processing, and management responsibilities.

Over and above privacy issues alone, there are several advantages to be obtained through the GDPR compliance whether it’s optimizing data processing and lifecycle workflows, data hygiene and cleanup, or even increased understanding of security vulnerabilities

Increased credibility and trustworthiness

 

Use GDPR and privacy compliance as your business advantage. Demonstrate the following to your consumers and earn their trust and confidence

  • Transparency, justice, and lawfulness – Show your consumers that you are transparent, fair and complaint with GDPR and privacy laws.
  • Limitation of purpose – process personal data only for the purposes for which you collected it
  • Minimization of data – process personal data to the extent really necessary
  • Limitation on storage accuracy – check where you can store data legally
  • Confidentiality and integrity – following GDPR and privacy laws gives your business confidence and demonstrates the integrity
  • Accountability- GDPR compliance demonstrates that you are an accountable organization who respects personal data of individuals and takes their privacy seriously.

Customers will trust and believe an organization, company if it can demonstrate that it follows the GDPR principles when making data-protection decisions. GDPR compliance, particularly data protection by design, is considered as a major differentiator in the marketplace, a real business advantage.

Furthermore, as privacy and security become more entwined, a high level of data protection now entails a high degree of data security, an objective desired by practically every type of business.

A better grasp of the information gathered

 

GDPR compliance, when done properly, provides businesses with a better understanding and appreciation of their data (including personal data) and how it moves throughout the company.

Marketing and sales teams, for example, can benefit from GDPR’s aid in gaining greater control over who they can legitimately advertise products and/or services to. This strategy usually yields smaller, more engaged audiences who want to be contacted.

Meanwhile, privacy initiatives frequently result in the consolidation of data platforms, which can help departments like human resources by allowing for easier reporting and faster and better decision-making.

“It also helps with the employee value proposition, which is critical for recruiting and retaining employees.” Employees feel more confident and comfortable about their workplace when they know that an organization, company has a demonstrated commitment to privacy and security of their personal data, from how long it’s kept to how it’s disposed of.

Need for GDPR Compliance Netherlands

 

Privacy Risk Assessment

 

Businesses should strengthen their privacy and data security strategies by assigning someone to be responsible for data use and compliance concerns. This person is usually referred to as a chief privacy officer (CPO) or a data protection officer (DPO) and is in charge of helping company implement techniques to identify, map, and track personal data flows within the company.

In addition, the CPO or DPO is in charge of negotiating data-related contracts with vendors, managing data management and protection, and developing and implementing GDPR compliant privacy policy. In most cases, the DPO or CPO is also in charge of establishing and maintaining a cybersecurity breach response plan, as well as educating and certifying employees who have access to and process personal data.

Infinity Legal Solutions will help you conduct an end to end privacy risk assessment, identify the gaps and come up with a privacy risk mitigation plan.

Enterprise and brand reputation were safeguarded and improved.

 

Organizations can avoid potential penalties while also unlocking latent reputational and brand value by respecting consumers’ privacy.

Privacy is vital to trust. Without a demonstrable commitment to privacy, businesses risk losing their brand and having their products and/or services branded as shady or weird. GDPR compliance will, in the long run, increase customer loyalty and trust, as well as open doors to increased innovation and value creation.

A level playing field in terms of privacy

 

Prior to GDPR, many companies doing business in the EU were regularly subjected to unfair competition from companies that paid little or no regard to personal data. In such an environment, ethical businesses struggled to figure out how to achieve a level of privacy that safeguarded customers and clients without putting their businesses at an unsustainable competitive disadvantage.

The GDPR is one of the important pieces of legislation codifying key privacy principles: privacy by design and privacy by default.

Why is personal data compliance important?

 

GDPR compliance is becoming an increasingly critical standard for companies, firms providing services to organizations, as well as for those trying to differentiate themselves to prospective customers.

Additionally, businesses that collect and process personal data are required to comply with GDPR. and pay attention when they hire vendors or service providers who are GDPR complaint. Consumers will seek out companies who take privacy seriously as they grow more savvy and aware of their privacy rights and privacy noncompliance.

ENFORCEMENT OF THE General Data Protection Regulation AND PENALTIES FOR NON-COMPLIANCE

 

The GDPR has increased the penalty for non-compliance in compared to the previous Data Protection Directive. Because the GDPR establishes a norm across the EU for all enterprises that handle EU residents’ or citizens personal data, data protection authorities have more authority than under previous regulation. Data protection authorities have investigative and corrective powers, including the ability to issue warnings for noncompliance, conduct audits to ensure compliance, order companies to make specified improvements by specified deadlines, order data to be erased, and prevent companies from transferring data to on compliant countries.

The GDPR also empowers data protection authorities to levy bigger fines than the Data Protection Directive; fines are decided based on the facts of each case, and the data protection authorities can choose whether or not to use their corrective powers in conjunction with fines. Fines of up to 20% of total global annual revenue may be imposed on organizations that fail to comply with certain GDPR standards.

Businesses can use GDPR compliance services Netherlands

 

Small organizations or companies may not always be able to afford to develop their own data security IT or tech solutions. In many circumstances, end-to-end encrypted services that keep data inaccessible to everyone but its owner would be preferable. We can help you with identifying GDPR-compliant platforms that businesses of all sizes may utilize to manage their daily activities such as communications and file storage.

GDPR compliance with Infinity Legal Solutions

Infinity Legal Solutions makes it easy for your company to comply with GDPR rules, providing you and your customer’s trust in how personal data is processed, stored and used. We can assist you in deciding where and how to store personal data as well as monitoring your networks and applications so that you may detect potential data breach issues or unauthorized access to personal data.

Whether you are a startup, small business or firm or a multinational company, Infinity Legal solutions can help you with end to end privacy, security and GDPR related compliance including but not limited to the following:

  • Performing a data protection impact assessment which is a privacy risk assessment, which will help you:
  • Asses privacy risk
  • Decide which personal you process, why do you process such personal data
  • How long can you keep such personal data
  • When should you delete or erase personal data
  • Which security you should take to ensure GDPR and applicable law privacy compliance
  • International data transfers
  • Privacy by design
  • What to do when a consumer ask you to modify, change, correct or erase, delete their personal data
  • Determine whether you are a data controller or a joint controller or data processor
  • Draft privacy statement, privacy policy
  • Draft -Privacy agreements and schedules , annex
  • Negotiate privacy agreements for you
  • End to end privacy GDPR compliance
  • Right to be forgotten
  • Data portability
  • Data security
  • Creating and maintaining ROPA (Record of Processing Activities)
  • Personal data anonymization
  • Personal data pseudonymization
  • Transparency and personal data access to consumers
  • Privacy consent
  • Opt in
  • Double opt in
  • Data Protection Officer
  • Chief Privacy Officer
  • Data transfer restrictions – data localization requirements
  • Personal data breaches measures and mitigation
  • Reporting personal data breach to authorities
  • Privacy breach response process

Cybersecurity and data privacy

 

Cybersecurity and data privacy are intertwined topics. Since more and more companies offer digital services and certainly store personal data digitally in the cloud security of personal data is becoming more and more important.

Privacy laws and GDPR have a strong focus on protection of personal data of individuals. This protection of personal data is only possible when organizations deploy adequate technical and organizational measures to safeguard personal data.

Failure to secure personal data and privacy of individuals by organizations results into personal data breach. This means that there was an unauthorized access to personal data of the individual and it constitutes a personal data breach.

There are strict requirements and short timelines to report a personal data breach within 72 hours to data protection authorities with EU. Non compliance may result into severe consequences including fines and penalties.

Personal data breach examples include theft of a device containing personal data such as laptop, phone, hacking into companies’ network by an unauthorized party, inadvertent mistake where the personal data of individuals were accessed by unauthorized employees within the company, such as access to HR data folder not properly restricted.

Infinity Legal Solutions can help you assess the cyber security and data privacy readiness for your company, help you identify the gaps and take simple, practical measures to safeguard your organization and as a result become more compliant.

Privacy Risk Assessment, also known as data protection impact assessment

 

Privacy risk assessment it crucial to conduct whether it is for a specific project that involves dealing with or processing of personal data or for the complete assessment and an overview for processing of personal data.

Privacy Risk Assessment, also known as data protection impact assessment, ensures implementation of privacy by design and default concept for your organizations.

Privacy Risk Assessment, also known as data protection impact assessment, helps you identify why you process personal data, which personal data do you really need to process and what is the reason behind such processing (legitimate business interest or consent based processing), where can you process and store such data (international data transfers, within EU or outside EU, data localization requirements) and how would you comply with the requirements of GDPR and applicable privacy laws with regards to security of personal data and respect individual rights, such as right to amend, modify, change, erase, delete data, object to data processing, data portability, right to be forgotten.

This all sounds like very complicated. Infinity Legal Solutions help you conduct a privacy risk assessment and advise on measures that you need to take to become GDPR and privacy law compliant.

Privacy Compliance Netherlands

 

Netherlands is part of EU and therefore GDPR fully applies to all companies, firms organizations whether it is a start up, small, medium or large multinational organization. Failure to comply with GDPR has legal and compliance consequences but also costs you your business, reputation and worst of all loss of consumer trust.

Infinity Legal Solutions has experts on the privacy compliance topics, which can help your company, firm , organization become GDPR and privacy compliant in a very easy manner. Infinity Legal Solutions is your true legal and compliance business partner, who takes time to understand your business, your needs and then offer simple, cost effective and practical GDPR and privacy compliant solutions. Infinity Legal Solutions can help your organization become privacy by design and default compliant by offering customized advise which is tailored to your business and its needs. We help you identify which solutions and controls are to be implemented and we help them implement within your organization.

Did you know that most of the personal data breaches are coming from vendors or service providers noncompliance particularly provider of IT, digital services such as cloud storage providers? It is crucial to do a thorough assessment of these service providers to ensure that they have appropriate technical and organizational measure in place to adequately protect and secure personal data.

Infinity Legal Solutions can help you assessing the vendors’ capabilities in terms of data privacy compliance as well as assess whether the security measures they deploy are adequate to ensure compliance with GDPR and applicable privacy compliance in the Netherlands. Further Infinity Legal solutions offer complete privacy compliance advise packages in the Netherlands tailored to GDPR and privacy law compliance.

GDPR compliance services Netherlands

 

If you want to be a successful business in the Netherlands (start up, small or medium or large organization) it is essential to ensure GDPR compliance at all times. Infinity Legal Solutions offers an end-to-end suite of GDPR compliance services in the Netherlands.

Infinity Legal Solutions help you conduct a privacy risk assessment, DPIA (data protection impact assessment and highlight the privacy gaps, makes a clear action plan to address those privacy gaps and help you implement the privacy controls in a simple, practical and cost effective manner.

Infinity Legal Solutions provides GDPR compliance services in the Netherlands, whereby we help your management and organization understand the importance of GDPR compliance in the Netherlands and work with you in a seamless manner to help you take all privacy and data protection measures as required. Our expertise include DPIA, mitigation measures, DPO services, support during data breaches, reporting such breach, BCR (Binding Corporate Rules) if you are a multinational organization. We work with you at a structural level or on an adhoc basis as per the level of your current GDPR compliance in the Netherlands.

Privacy by Design and default

 

Privacy by Design and default means that an organizations’ processes, controls and systems are designed in a manner to ensure and support GDPR and privacy compliance automatically.

This is the simplest way to achieve GDPR privacy compliance. In order to attain Privacy by Design and default it is important to understand which personal data does your organization process and why, where such data will be stored, who will have access to such data and why and when such data will be deleted. Privacy by Design and default, when done right, automatically takes care of all GDPR privacy compliance requirements in relation to your business and personal data processing activities.

Once an organization is ready Privacy Design and default, then GDPR and privacy compliance is embedded in an inherent way in the activities, systems and processes. It is crucial to review the Privacy by Design and default scheme from time to time and perform an ongoing monitoring to ensure that it is uptodate in accordance with your business activities and current practices.

Infinity Legal Solutions can assist in an easy and practical way to achieve Privacy by Design and default status for your organization and help monitoring as and when you change the way of working or to adapt to your business needs and accordingly update the Privacy Design and default model.

Whether you have an inhouse legal or compliance team or not, Infinity Legal Solutions can help you in both situations. If you have an inhouse team, ILS will work with your inhouse team to advise on the Privacy By Design And Default concept and if required help implement and further monitor the Privacy Design and default model.

If you do not have an inhouse legal or compliance team, then Infinity Legal Solutions will work with your business team to create the Privacy By Design and Default concept, help implement and further monitor the Privacy Design and default model on an ongoing basis.