This week marked the third anniversary of the introduction of the GDPR. A cause for celebration? "The GDPR changed the way that companies collect and manage personal data forever,” according to Matt Lock, technical director at Varonis. “After a relatively slow start, it's starting to bite hard. In the past year, the number of fines has increased by more than one-third, amounting to a total of 158.5 million ($191.5 million). Google faced the biggest fine in GDPR history and was stung for €50 million ($56.6 million) following an appeal hearing in March 2020.” And this is despite the UK’s regulator dialing back on GDPR investigations in the past year due to the pandemic.

It’s understandable if organisations have to some degree neglected their GDPR duties while firefighting the more immediate challenges of Covid-19. We’ve all experienced an unprecedented upheaval in the way we work, but as lockdown restrictions start to ease now might be the perfect time to reevaluate our GDPR stance.

Oliver Cronk, Chief IT Architect at Tanium, advises that “To correctly follow the guidelines, enterprises should work with their Data Protection Officers to provide support for the whole organisation. Particularly when new operating models and processes have had to be introduced overnight in many cases. Examples of these changes are sectors such as hospitality which are now collecting more personal information from customers than ever due to new pandemic related processes, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of not clearly declaring what the data is being used for, how it’s being processed and how long it will be kept. Organisations need to make sure compliance for post pandemic processes aren’t overlooked or they may be in for nasty surprises such as fines in the future.”

As we begin to emerge from the pandemic it seems inevitable that some pretty hefty fines will be handed out before GDPR reaches its fourth anniversary. As one door closes...

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