Irish businesses taking GDPR compliance in their stride

Six months on and Irish businesses appear to be optimistic about compliance with the GDPR as 88% say they are confident that they have correctly interpreted their GDPR obligations while 84% of organisations are satisfied that they are materially compliant with GDPR.

Mazars and McCann FitzGerald have released their third report on the awareness and understanding of Irish business for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the first report since GDPR’s introduction in May 2018.

Although 68% of businesses found it challenging to put the necessary GDPR compliance structures in place, there is also a shared belief that the introduction of GDPR has been a positive development for society with 82% of businesses agreeing or strongly agreeing that GDPR has been beneficial for individuals.

Where to next?
With 56% of firms reporting that GDPR compliance has placed an excessive administrative burden on their organisations, further investment will be needed to ensure that ongoing compliance is sustainable. Businesses that have been relying on manual processes will need more automated solutions in the future, particularly since potentially labour-intensive activities such as maintaining an active record of processing or documenting and evidencing compliance are identified as areas of concern from an enforcement perspective.

Looking ahead, 84% of companies said that they had either implemented or intended to implement IT solutions to support delivering and demonstrating their compliance with GDPR. Of the 84%, the majority of businesses (30%) expected to invest between €50,000 and €250,000 in implementing these IT solutions.

Also, when asked about future plans for GDPR in light of Brexit, companies are adopting a wait and see approach with 50% saying that they are waiting for further developments before they make a post-Brexit plan.