The legal consequences of not complying with GDPR guidelines have also been clearly defined and leave little to the imagination. Companies in violation of the GDPR may be fined between 2% to 4% of their annual global turnover or up €20 million, whichever is higher. Frequent GDPR violations can raise the level of legal penalties to the €40 million range.
The GDPR Compliance Checklist
The GDPR is a complex 11 chaptered document with 99 articles that cover a wide range of user privacy issues. This set of regulations can be hard to digest and interpret, which is where this checklist enters the picture. The ultimate GDPR compliance checklist highlights and lays out all of the main bases that you have to cover systematically to achieve GDPR compliance.
With the GDPR in in full swing, a DPIA can be extremely helpful for online publishers, who are now officially defined as data controllers (fully responsible for GDPR breaches). In a nutshell, DPIA is a risk management process. It helps map and analyze the privacy risks your operations create, eventually enabling you to come up with an optimization plan.
A.Identify the privacy risks and Evaluate Privacy Solutions
Your first challenge is to map the data collection points where you are collecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data from your customers and identify the privacy risks that exist while processing them. Data controllers (i.e - online publishers) should pay extra attention to PII data that is processed by third party services.
After analyzing and understanding the privacy challenges in the ecosystem, the data controller should record all findings. Your next step should be to implement required mechanisms for enforcing personal data protection. Furthermore, the selected mechanisms need to be demonstrated adequately to prove GDPR compliance.
Online publishers need to know what exactly the third party vendors are doing with their customers’ PII data and how exactly it’s being processed. This collaboration is vital for GDPR compliance.
As part of you shiny new privacy policy, your legal department or consultant will require a list of all data processors, why are they being used, how are they being used, and to what extent. You will also be required to ensure that your customers’ data is being processed in compliance and tracking all developments in real time while taking care of the relevant documentation.
Mandatory documents to enforce GDPR compliance include the following:
The procedure revolving GDPR breaches needs to be clear to avoid any reporting delays. When a PII data leak is detected, the data controller needs to record the event in the Data Breach Register (Article 33). There is also a requirement to notify the relevant Supervisory Authority about the incident, while also updating the affected customers (Article 33 and 34).
Data controllers need to make sure that that have user consent to collect personal data. The online publisher needs to be able to demonstrate that the data subject has consented to processing of his or her personal data, ideally via an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear language. Furthermore, users now have the right to withdraw their consent at any time.
You will need to identify what your staff respond well to and incorporate these elements to create a successful GDPR staff training program. Common techniques include adding a game or an element of reward. A GDPR awareness programme should be an ongoing process that is reinforced regularly throughout the year and also when staff-related incidents occur.
It's also important to make sure that all third party vendors are encrypting the data before and after it is processed and/or transmitted to fourth and fifth party providers.
First and foremost, the data controller should assign a Data Protection Officer (DPO) when there are significant amounts of DII data being collected and processed. Online publishers definitely belong to this category. The DPO has the responsibility of advising the company about GDPR compliance and monitoring the activities from the legal standpoint.
Third party vendors are becoming increasingly necessary for modern online publishers to remain profitable. These services can appear to be perfectly functional, they are basically autonomous components that are working independently, often while compromising user privacy. Many also make use of fourth and fifth party services to gain added functionality.
Compliance is further complicated due to the way third party solutions work. Your PII data can potentially reach new data processors in the form of fourth and fifth party services. A proper GDPR audit should go beyond first party software on the website and include third party services in Ad Tech and MarTech stacks for a through inspection.
Remember, GDPR Doesn’t End With Just One Audit
A good GDPR audit doesn’t mean your Ad Tech stacks will stay compliant in the long run. Third party vendors often make code changes that alter the way your PII data is processed or in extreme cases stored, which is a violation of the GDPR guidelines. New fourth and fifth party vendors, who can potentially be completely non compliant, can also enter the fray.
The meaning of this ongoing risk is that online publications have to be on the top of things and monitor their ecosystem, especially Ad Tech and MarTech stacks, in real time.
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