GDPR One year on what has been the Impact?

By Anne Reilly, founder and CEO of PaycheckPlus

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect on May 25th, 2018. These new rules had significant implications for businesses and payroll personnel. GDPR continues to be an ongoing battle for some businesses with the biggest challenges being resourcing.

So, what have we learned?

Stop duplicating your data

Most people are guilty of unnecessarily and unwittingly duplicating data. For example, saving a document to your personal work drive and forwarding via email to another team member is unnecessary data duplication. For that reason, store it in one location and only share a link to that location if absolutely necessary.

Delete unnecessary data

Don’t hold on to outdated data relating to an individual that you don’t need and shouldn’t retain? GDPR gives anyone the right to request their data from a company and you must provide the following:

(a)the purposes of the processing;

(b) the categories of personal data concerned;

(c) the recipients or categories of recipient to whom the personal data have been or will be disclosed, in particular recipients in third countries or international organisations;

(d) where possible, the estimated period of time the personal data will be stored, or, if not possible, the criteria used to determine that period;

(e) the existence of the right to request from the controller rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing of personal data concerning the data subject or to object to such processing;

(f) the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority;

(g) where the personal data are not collected from the data subject, any available information as to their source;

(h) the existence of automated decision-making, including profiling, referred to in Article 22(1) and (4) and, at least in those cases, meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for the data subject.

(source: Article 15 europa.eu)

Only collect data you need

Make sure any HR and payroll data request forms are only collecting what you need. Limit data collection to only what is necessary to process your payroll and run HR effectively.

Security

In order to protect data when it is being transferred most businesses are now using password protected documents and encrypted email communications.