Why should we bother complying with data protection regulations anyway? This is the question I am asked so much and, while there are some obvious ones, to be honest some of the answers are not what you might expect.
Complying regulations can increase your standing, thereby making you a more attractive trading counterpart and save you money. Isn’t that weird?
The obvious answers
I have put this first point in other blogs and articles before, if you don’t register with the ICO (either for an exemption, or with the name of your Data Controller) you will be caught, at some point, with some kind of penalty. The reputational damage only, from the issuance of the penalty on the ICO’s website, could affect your profitability. Add the impact of any fine and it becomes a double whammy – definitely far from ideal.
The ability to be able to demonstrate compliance by having good Terms & Conditions, a good privacy policy and processes to easily unsubscribe from marketing again affect reputation, but this time positively.
What might be surprising
As a business to business enterprise there is more reliance on other standards, such as the 2015 revision of ISO 9001. The documentary evidence required of good practices being carried out by the organisation could aid in obtaining your ISO 9001 certification.
Now it depends on how large your organisation is, how long it has been operating and what review processes you have in place, but you could find yourself saving costs through compliance. How? – I hear the cry. Well it boils down to the number of records you keep in your IT systems and, therefore, their size should you have your IT systems online. Things like CRM’s, accounting software, marketing tools, etc. all take up room and additional time to back-up. Complying with GDPR will almost definitely trim the size of your data stored as you will be removing data you no longer use and it will take less time and server size to back-up.
So are there now more reason to bother complying with GDPR that you knew about before? I hope so.
Whatever you think of the current framework of data protection through the Data Protection Act 2018 and PECR (2003) there are benefits that you can exploit. It is not all bad.
There is so much more information available, some of it very detailed. Please look through the other blogs and see if the information you want is provided.
If not, we would be pleased to answer your enquiry through enquiries@eyebray.com , or visit https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/ for more information direct from the ICO.
