According to a study conducted by US-based software maker Ipswitch, more than two-thirds (or 68%) of the IT professionals surveyed for the study said keeping up to date with the changes was a financial burden, with British respondents more adamant in this regard, at 77%, compared to 66% in France and 61% in Germany.
The draft GDPR, which affects any organisation that collects, stores, processes and shares personal data on employees, customers or partners, imposes more stringent data protection rules and carries far more serious penalties for non-compliance of up to 2% of a company’s annual global turnover.
The study found awareness of the regulation has improved since this time in 2014, with 69 of those surveyed acknowledging it will affect their businesses – in 2014 more than half of respondents, or 56%, could not accurately identify what ‘GDPR’ meant.
However, 18% said they still had no idea whether the regulatory changes affected them, in spite of acknowledging that they do store and process personal data. 90% of the IT professionals surveyed – 100 in the UK, 100 in France and 100 in Germany – said their business stores personal data, with 86% processing it and more than one-third, or 40%, sharing it externally via means including e-mail, portable storage and the postal system.
69% of those surveyed said they will need to invest in new technologies and services to prepare for GDPR, while 51% said their business has already allocated training budget to help staff comply with the regulation. Exactly one-half said their organisation has allocated internal training resource to aid compliance.
Of the technologies companies believe they will need to invest in, 62% said they were likely to need new encryption technologies, with 61% investing in analytic and reporting, 53 planning to buy perimeter security and 42% file-sharing tools.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now