GDPR Compliance Lacking Post-Implementation

Getting your dispersed data landscape in order can seem like a daunting prospect, even though developing a proactive approach to governance, risk, and compliance is the best strategy for avoiding future litigation or regulatory hassles — with all the benefits of a major spring clean!

Still, there appears to be ongoing hesitation among many businesses to take the steps necessary to comply with the latest regulatory requirements.

According to the results of a recent Deloitte poll, only 35 percent of professionals involved in General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance efforts say their organizations can defensibly demonstrate compliance with the new data privacy rules that took effect on May 25.

These findings, note Deloitte, suggest that a majority of organizations face potential litigation, regulatory, and internal investigation challenges. According to Rich Vestuto, a managing director in the discovery practice of Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics, the low rate of post-implementation compliance “reflects the complexity and challenges as the world of privacy rapidly changes.”

Among the remaining survey respondents, 33 percent anticipate that their organization will be compliant by the end of the year, while more than 11 percent said they plan to take a “wait and see” approach amid uncertainty over how EU regulators in various countries will enforce the new regulation.

It is also widely whispered that some organizations are waiting to see what the first fines imposed will look like before investing heavily in a new information governance program.

In regard to discovery challenges, more than 30 percent of respondents said they expect a GDPR-related increase, a number that Vestuto said actually indicates an underestimation of the new rule’s potential legal, regulatory, and investigatory implications.

In addition, 20 percent of respondents revealed that their organization’s data privacy programs lack consideration of scalability — a finding that Deloitte notes leaves them potentially unprepared to deal with new rules in other jurisdictions.

With Deloitte’s poll numbers showing continued uncertainty regarding how to address information governance, Knovos and other leaders in the field encourage businesses, organizations, and agencies to take this critical step toward ensuring regulatory compliance, mitigating risk, and streamlining data management.

The good news is that thanks to the latest advances in information governance technology, we have never been more prepared to cope with new regulations and prepare for potential litigation. In particular, software solutions like smart archiving and unstructured data crawling can do a lot of muscle work for you from a single data command center, ensuring full control of all your critical data.

Deloitte’s poll of nearly 500 professionals involved in organizational GDPR compliance was conducted as part of a June webcast entitled “EU General Data Protection Regulation: Practical Steps for Compliance.”