The DPAs are independent public authorities that also offer expert information to assist companies comply with the regulations. Companies located anywhere in the world that collect and process personal data on EU citizens are required to comply with GDPR. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is legislation that consolidates existing data privacy laws among member nations. Effective on May 25, 2018, the seven core principles of GDPR are designed to protect the privacy and security of EU citizens’ personal data. Refamiliarize yourself with their intentions and ensure your personal data processing practices support them. To understand how the data protection principles work in practice, let’s look at some examples.
- Such data transfers have come under increased scrutiny following the Schrems II ruling that invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield act for transfers of EU citizens’ data to US-based companies.
- It automates manual work like access management, risk assessment, audit trails, and alerting on failing checks – and much more.
- Under the GDPR, regular updates to privacy policies and other relevant documentation, and communication of changes, are required.
- The DPO is responsible for monitoring the organization’s compliance with GDPR, providing advice on data protection matters, and acting as a point of contact for data subjects and supervisory authorities.
- This principle requires that organizations have a valid and lawful basis for processing personal data.
Similarly to the minimum necessary standard in many data security laws in the United States, data minimization essentially means the use of data needs to be limited to its essential needs. According to the ICO, “Data must be adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed. A healthcare provider collects personal data from patients, such as their medical history and contact information. The healthcare provider must comply with the data protection principles to ensure that this data is processed lawfully, fairly, and transparently. By upholding data subject rights, organizations build trust with individuals and foster a culture of privacy and data protection.
What are GDPR rights?
According to the storage limitation principle, businesses must keep personal data for the particular purposes for which it was collected. Companies must also put in place the necessary security measures to guarantee the safe storage of individuals information. Organizational measures, on the other hand, focus on the internal policies and procedures that govern how personal data is handled within an organization.
The last principle notes that organizations should take responsibility for the data they retain and show compliance with all the principles. This indicates that organizations should be able to provide evidence of the measure they have taken to ensure compliance. Compliance with the essence of these core principles is, thus, an essential building block for solid data protection procedures. It is also essential to the compliance with any specific provision of the GDPR. Integrity is about making sure that personal data is correct and cannot be manipulated by others (i.e., you should opt to protect your systems against hackers). Confidentiality is about making sure that only the people who should have access to the personal data are processing it.
Definition and purpose
Organizations must not only comply with the regulations but also be able to demonstrate their compliance through appropriate documentation and implementation of effective privacy policies and practices. Similarly to the principle of least privilege, data should be processed on a need to know basis. Only individuals who require access to the information to be given access to the information. Confidentiality means keeping the customers’ privacy as the forefront of your business practices and using data in a way that is discrete and respectful of the customers information and privacy. This principle protects the integrity and privacy of data by making sure its secure (which extends to IT systems, paper records and physical security).
But it is also a best practice for data privacy more broadly, good user experience, and brand reputation. The majority of consumers today will not do business with a company that they don’t trust or that they don’t think protects their personal information and uses it judiciously. Data loss prevention (DLP) solutions automate the enforcement of an organization’s data handling policies. A DLP platform can be instrumental what Is GDPR in preventing the unauthorized use or disclosure of sensitive personal data subject to GDPR protection. Deploying an effective DLP tool can be the difference between GDPR compliance and noncompliance. The accountability principle is the only principle that applies to “data controllers” (who decide how and why to process personal data) but not “data processors” (who process personal data on behalf of a controller).
📌 To sum up: 7 GDPR Principles to Follow for Protecting Users’ Data
The principle essentially means data controllers should proactively plan to protect personal data from any unauthorised or unlawful processing activity. The controller should be diligent to prevent data from any accidental loss, damage or destruction. The principle aims to promote organisation-wide measures related to information security.
It should be used in the data subject’s best interest, and the subject must be made aware of the why and how of data collection and processing. Data privacy and data protection has never been more important and the same goes for the regulations and frameworks that hold businesses to a higher standard. Ensuring your business has data discovery, classification and reporting capabilities not only helps your business scale with evolving requirements, but it’ll put you in a better position for compliance, too. This principle requires appropriate security measures to be in place to restrict the unauthorized use of personal data through data breaches and ransomware. Personal data should only be stored for the length of time required to fulfill the purposes of the data controller. Businesses must justify the timeframe for which they want to retain collected data.
Privacy by design takes a proactive approach to privacy, which can strengthen your security defense and your reputation as a company that values privacy. Since it is almost impossible to avoid processing personal data these days, these 7 principles probably apply to you, but their extent may vary depending on your context. Therefore, I will explain the 7 GDPR principles with an example that will follow throughout this article. ISO’s website states, “Data must be collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes. This goes back to the first principle in that data usage needs to be clearly disclosed.
Non-compliance with the GDPR imposes severe penalties, including fines of up to 4% of an organization’s annual global sales or €20 million (whichever is higher). Additionally, corporations may be held responsible for any losses caused by a data breach. Lawfulness means that all the processes concerning your users’ data should be carried out on a recognized lawful basis. One of the core principles of GDPR is maintaining the privacy and security of user information, and authentication and identity management are critical to that effort. With proper identity verification mechanisms in place, your company can hope to meet the rigorous requirements of GDPR. No matter where you are located in the world, if you are processing the personal data of European citizens or residents, you need to fulfil GDPR obligations.