How to ensure compliance with GDPR requirements for data privacy

Navigating General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy compliance can be a daunting task, especially in light of the hefty penalties for any breaches. The consequences of non-compliance are severe, with substantial fines and potential loss of customer trust. However, when approaching a regulation as complex as the GDPR, it might be difficult to know where to start. Read on to discover the key facts about the GDPR and get the practical strategies you need to ensure your compliance program is comprehensive and effective. 

What is the GDPR privacy law?

The GDPR privacy law is a set of rights and obligations established by the European Union (EU) to safeguard the personal data of EU or EEA residents, which includes all 27 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. The UK has also adopted the GDPR into its own privacy legislation. The GDPR outlines individuals' digital rights, the responsibilities of data processors, acceptable compliance methods, and penalties for violations. Although an EU law, it applies to companies anywhere in the world that have an economic relationship with anyone's resident in the European Union or European Economic Area (EEA). An “economic relationship” means it covers customers and employees, but it also includes users of free services. Here are the key facts to know about this far-reaching regulation:

• Scope: The GDPR applies to any company with business based in the EU that controls or processes data. It also covers businesses outside the EU, if they provide paid or free products or services to, or monitor the behavior of, EU or EEA residents.

• Personal data definition: Companies must protect all personal data, including any information that can directly or indirectly identify an individual, such as names, email addresses, and IP addresses.  

• Accountability: Companies must demonstrate compliance by maintaining detailed documentation of data processing activities and ensuring robust data protection measures are in place.

• Transparency requirements: The GDPR emphasizes transparency, requiring organizations to communicate with subjects to ensure they are informed of how their data is being used at all times. 

Why is it important to comply with the GDPR?

GDPR compliance is essential because any breaches can lead to severe penalties, including substantial fines of up to €20 million or 4% of annual global turnover, whichever is higher. Violations may also trigger lawsuits, punitive actions, and cause major reputational damage. What are the primary GDPR privacy requirements?

The GDPR’s central privacy regulations cover subject rights, consent requirements, data minimization, and purpose limitation. Here’s a breakdown of these rules:

• Subject rights: Organizations must empower individuals to exercise their GDPR rights fully, such as accessing, amending, or erasing their data and objecting to how it is processed.

• Consent requirements: Companies must obtain explicit consent from individuals before collecting or processing their data. 

• Data minimization: Only the necessary personal data should be collected and processed to fulfill the specified purpose.

• Purpose limitation: Personal data should be collected solely for clear, legitimate purposes and not used in ways that are incompatible with those purposes.

What are the challenges enterprises face in ensuring GDPR privacy policy compliance?

As the official version of GDPR is 261 pages long. GDPR privacy compliance is fraught with legal, technical, and operational complexities that are highly demanding for businesses of all sizes. These challenges include: 

• Data localization: Certain types of data, particularly personal data, must be stored and processed within the country where it was collected. This can create difficulties when aiming to deliver content globally while complying with GDPR mandates. 

• Consent management: To comply with GDPR, organizations must obtain explicit, informed consent from users before processing their data. Managing this consent across various platforms – websites, mobile apps, and other digital channels – can be complicated, especially for businesses with a broad online presence. 

• Ensuring transparency and accountability: The regulation also emphasizes transparency and accountability. Businesses must craft clear, comprehensive privacy notices. This is difficult to achieve when dealing with diverse systems, platforms, and customer regions, each with varying expectations and legal standards. 

• Handling data breaches: Data breaches create additional compliance complexities. You must report any data breach to the relevant authorities within 72 hours of the breach occurring. You must also have a solid security system already in place that can quickly detect, assess, and respond to such incidents. However, with cyber threats ever-evolving, ensuring your security system is robust is often challenging with internal resources. 

• Cross-border data transfers: GDPR imposes strict regulations on the transfer of personal data outside the EU to ensure that data protection standards are maintained globally. EU-based enterprises with international operations often face difficulty in ensuring compliance when sharing or transferring data internationally, particularly in avoiding the inclusion of personal information.

How to ensure compliance with GDPR privacy requirements

By implementing some key practices, you can protect individuals' privacy rights, mitigate compliance risks, and avoid substantial penalties. Whether you're just starting your GDPR compliance journey or looking to enhance existing measures, these actionable steps will strengthen your data protection framework:

Conduct regular data audits

A data audit is a systematic review of an organization’s data processing activities to ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR. These check-ups for your data include the following:

• Data Mapping: Identifying and visualizing how data flows through your organization

• Data Inventory: Cataloging all data assets and their attributes

• Legal Compliance Review: Ensuring adherence to relevant data protection laws and regulations, such as the GDPR

• Access Controls: Evaluating who has access to what data and why

• Security Measure Evaluations: Assessing the effectiveness of data protection measures in place

• Third-Party Evaluations: Reviewing how external partners handle your organization's data

• Risk Assessments: Identifying potential vulnerabilities and threats to data security

Implement vigorous security measures

Organizations cannot comply with GDPR without having strong technical and process-based measures in place to protect personal data against breaches. Overcome data breach woes by setting up firewalls and intrusion detection systems. Regularly update your software, and be sure to apply any security patches. You should also use encryption to protect data in transit and at rest. 

Ensure transparent data processing

It’s mandatory to clearly inform individuals about how their data is collected, used, and stored. Develop accessible privacy notices and always use plain language in your communications about data use. Ensure that your privacy policies are easy to access on all platforms, and schedule times to regularly review and update your transparency processes. 

Uphold data subject rights

To effectively comply with GDPR standards, your organization needs a streamlined process for data access requests so that individuals can access, correct, or delete their data. Track and log all data requests and responses, and train your staff to handle requests efficiently. 

Integrate privacy by design

Though not explicitly required for compliance, the GDPR strongly encourages integrating data protection into the development of business processes and technologies from the outset. This strategy ensures that privacy is a core consideration, not an afterthought. 

Partner with compliance experts

It doesn’t make any sense to attempt GDPR compliance alone. You can engage GDPR-specialized legal counsel and consult regularly with trained data protection officers (DPOs). It’s also a good idea to find partners who have ensured their services have complied with the GDPR since it was first introduced. 

Train employees regularly

Continuously educate staff on GDPR principles, proper data handling practices, and security protocols to maintain awareness and compliance. GDPR training courses should be held on an annual or bi-annual basis and include training in role-specific data handling. Simulations can be excellent exercises to boost security awareness. 

How Fastly can help your business comply with GPRC privacy requirements

Achieving GDPR compliance is essential if you process or collect data belonging to EU residents. The most important principles of GDPR are the mandates to respect the rights of data owners, protect data from unauthorized access, and maintain data processing transparency. 

To overcome the hurdles of GDPR requirements, organizations should implement strategies such as routine audits, privacy-by-design practices, and comprehensive employee training. Ultimately, you need to take a holistic approach that includes collaborating with platforms and service providers dedicated to helping you maintain compliance.

This is where Fastly’s industry-leading and GDPR-compliant platform comes in. We are committed to bringing the power of edge cloud services to every part of the world in alignment with all relevant laws and constantly up-to-date with new regulations, including the GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. 

Here are some of the key benefits Fastly offers for enterprises aiming to meet GDPR compliance:

• Data processing and management practices: Fastly's data management strategies adhere to the principles of data minimization and purpose limitation, ensuring that only necessary data is processed for defined purposes. 

• Logging and real-time insights: With configurable logging options, Fastly helps organizations maintain GDPR-compliant records, support data minimization, and manage data subject requests effectively.

• Encryption and access controls: Fastly enhances GDPR compliance through robust security measures like TLS encryption, which secures user experiences and protects data integrity.

• Consent management integration: Fastly's solution can be tailored to enforce user consent preferences for data processing, providing real-time compliance with GDPR consent requirements.

Learn more about how Fastly's GDPR compliance solutions can streamline your data protection efforts and ensure regulatory adherence. Try Fastly for free today.