How a compliance platform can help you

Privacy regulations places a great deal of responsibility on you as a company. When it comes to GDPR, there are a number of areas you should focus on:

1. You must ensure you have a legal basis to collect personal data
2. You must keep track of all the personal data you collect
3. You need to set strict policies for what you do with personal data, who can access it, as well as how long to keep it
4. You must also put mechanisms in place to protect personal data at rest and in transit
5. You should respond to a variety of requests people send you about their data
6. You need to self-monitor your compliance and report any breaches

The areas affect your organisation, working method, documentation, etc. For many companies, this can seem overwhelming. In this case a compliance platform can help ease the task of compliance.

A compliance platform can automate one or more specific processes that are necessary to complete GDPR tasks. E.g:

Data mapping/inventory
Under GDPR, your company must maintain an up-to-date comprehensive record of your data processing activities. To begin with, a compliance platform with data mapping features can identify and document all the personal data your company collects, stores, and processes. In addition, it may flag sensitive data that needs special protection.

Consent management
According to GDPR, one of the acceptable legal bases for collecting personal data is consent. To this end, many GDPR compliance platforms include consent mechanisms. They can help you draft proper consents and give you an easy way to get clear, informed, affirmative consent before letting people share their data with you.  

Data request management 
GDPR allows people to make a variety of specific requests about their data. For example, they can ask for access to it, or ask you to transfer it to another company. Data request management platforms can, firstly, help you receive and respond to such requests properly. Further, they can verify requesters’ identities, help you collect data to fulfil requests securely and remind you to respond on time. Meanwhile, they document how you handle each request to demonstrate compliance.

Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) 
Depending on the nature and scale of your data processing activities, from time to time, you may need to perform Data Protection Impact Assessments or DPIAs. These assessments help you identify and mitigate risks to data subjects’ rights and freedoms. Since reviewing and evaluating risk data manually can be quite time-consuming, a compliance platform is useful to automate and simplify the process. Some platforms may also provide templates to create your DPIAs.

Privacy policy management
GDPR requires transparency. You must therefore provide clear information to people about what data you collect, how you use it, how long you keep it, and more. A GDPR compliance platform may provide tools to help you create privacy policies and notices as well as to keep them up-to-date.

Data breach notification
In the event that you suffer a breach, GDPR requires you to report it without undue delay to relevant authorities and data subjects. Generally, within 72 hours. In order to do this, get a compliance platform that helps you detect, report, and document data breaches properly.

Security and encryption
Another GDPR requirement is to take technical measures to protect data. A compliance platform may include features like encryption, two-factor authentication, strong passwords, as well as access controls to protect data. These can protect data at rest (when you store it). They can also protect it in transit (when you share or collect it).

Data retention and deletion
GDPR says you should only keep data as long as you need it. It also promotes the principles of data minimisation and storage limitation. In addition, a GDPR compliance platform may include features that let you set automatic data retention periods or remind you to delete old data before it becomes a liability.

Data transfer controls
All data you transfer to countries outside the EU/EEA gets special GDPR protection. If you perform this type of transfer regularly, you might consider looking for a compliance platform that helps you meet these requirements, such as using Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) or Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs). 

Auditing and reporting
Another huge part of GDPR compliance is documentation. Despite your best efforts to handle data properly, regulators often rely on the principle, “If you didn’t write it down, it didn’t happen”. For this reason, you may benefit from a GDPR platform that generates reports and maintains audit trails.

Training and awareness
Quite often, GDPR breaches are caused by employee mistakes.  In view of this, it’s a good idea to get a GDPR platform that supports training and awareness. This can help prevent common errors that cause breaches.