This year in June, Dixons Carphone announced that a major data breach had occurred, estimating that 1.2 million customers were affected by the hack. This number has now risen to 10 million customers’ who may have had their personal information hacked, including their names, addresses, and email addresses.

Dixons Carphone announced that no bank details were taken, however, 5.9 million payment cards were accessed, although the majority were protected by chip and pin.   

The company has expressed regret for any distress caused by the hack, stating they would be apologising to the customers affected in due time. Dixons Carphone chief executive, Alex Baldock advised that they are working with the top cyber security experts, in order to improve security measures, which has involved:

Supporting GDPR Gap Analysis and Audits

 There are various tools out there which cover essential elements on a data project, such as data discovery, data mapping and data lineage. Meanwhile, gap analyses tend to be performed by traditional auditing methods, such as reviewing the organisational and process documents and liaising with those departments involved in data processing. 

Below is a non-exhaustive list of support tools:

Where a Controller uses third party systems to process personal data, the responsibility for consent still lays with it. Controllers bear the onus of acquiring GDPR-standard consent (or indicating any other lawful basis for processing the data), demonstrate it to the regulator and ensure it can be withdrawn as easily as it was given. Therefore, selecting Processors who are themselves GDPR-compliant and can support the controller’s obligations is key.

If the third party has processing purposes that are separate from the Controller's purposes, then the third party is deemed a Controller under Article 28.10. Here, the third party must secure its own legal basis for processing, whether by consent or another legal basis.

The Controller may update its contracts to seek certainty that its Processors are adhering to the same GDPR standard and that any breach can be indemnified by the Processor. Meanwhile, if the Processor believes the Controller infringes GDPR, they have an obligation under Article 28 to inform the Controller and record the notification.

The GDPR law is not the only new European privacy regulation everyone is talking about. There has been a lot of discussion regarding the ePrivacy Regulation, which deals with e-communication, although technically it is a revised version of the ePrivacy Directive or the ‘cookies law’. The ePrivacy Regulation was initially supposed to be introduced on 25^th of May 2018, the same day as GDPR. However, it has been delayed but it is still expected to come in to effect this year pending review by the European Union’s member states.

Although, some of the changes may appear small, as a whole it will have a huge impact in the long run and will also make organisations more aware of the regulations they must adhere to, which will also align with GDPR requirements.

A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) is a procedure which assists you in detecting and minimising data protection risks of a project. You should always complete a DPIA when undertaking tasks of a high risk, usually new tasks or projects.

In order to conduct an assessment, you can utilize certain applications in order to produce an efficient DPIA.

Recently, there has been discussion regarding whether or not it is GDPR-compliant to transfer encrypted data on applications based outside of the EU. An example of this is Dropbox, as they have US-based servers, therefore if personal data is transferred through the Dropbox system, then technically it has been transferred outside of EU jurisdiction and is no longer GDPR compliant.

However, personal data sent in this format is usually encrypted and only the necessary individuals are given the encryption key to gain access to the data. So, in this instance, is the transference of the data compliant?

Although, the data may have been transferred outside of the EU the encryption key is not stored on the Cloud servers, therefore there is no identifiable information from the provider. However, there is always a possible risk that a data breach will occur if an unauthorised source obtains the key by force.

From the 25^th May 2018, to avoid the risk of breaching the General Data Protection Regulation, employer’s are obligated to take on new responsibilities, as well as updating their contracts, policies and procedures, in order to maintain compliance under the GDPR requirements.

This means employer’s must:

The new European data legislation or GDPR requires a balance between the needs of the many and the needs of the individual.

The benefits and risks of using personal data splits opinion particularly within the medical research sector. 

'Big data' can digest previously unimaginable quantities of information and uncovers previously-unforeseen patterns.  On the one hand, it may address the challenges posed by chronic conditions such as heart disease or cancers. But, the way forward is less clear.  

The minimum information needed for a processor to comply with its legal responsibilities, and for the controller to comply with Article 28, is to specify whether the data includes special categories of personal data, this raises the risk profile of the data set.

For Personal Data that does not fall into one of either:

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was enforced on the 25^th May 2018, which applied major changes to the way data is protected, enabling employers to reconsider their employment and HR procedures, and amend them in order to comply with GDPR requirements.

 Employers should maintain focus on the following factors:

According to a study from the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), data breaches have shown a 75% increase in the past two years.

The report was conducted by Kroll, one of the top corporate investigations and risk consulting firms, based out of the US. Kroll compiled data breach reports which were submitted to the ICO, regarding breaches of personal data, including financial and health details. Some of the data contained in the reports were of public knowledge, whilst other forms of data were accessed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The final report established that over 2,000 reports submitted to the ICO were due to human error in the past year, with the most common grounds for a data breach being: data being sent by email or fax to the wrong recipients and the loss or theft of paperwork.

Does a data processor need to be informed when a data controller deletes data?

A Data Processor only needs to be informed if the Data Controller is in need of support, in regard to undertaking the right to be forgotten. Although, it is important for a data controller to define the relationship with the data processor, in order to understand the dynamics between the two.  It is also seen as good practice to allow the controller to gain access to deleted records through a Subject Access Request that the controller has obtained. If a Data Processor retains copy records as well as back up records, they must be deleted if requested by the Controller. 

The deletion process can be difficult to carry out efficiently, although it is an essential process, according to GDPR, all the subject’s data must be deleted and backed up again, which is a lengthy but essential process.

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (the “Regulation”) came into effect on 25 May 2018, replacing the Data Protection Act 1998. The GDPR requirements largely repeat the security principles set out in the DPA, although with a much tougher regime and more severe sanctions for breach.

This change has brought about business challenges for which there is little, if any, legislative or regulatory clarity at present.

 1. How does controllerand processorliability work in practice? 

According to recent survey, 17 out of 24 regulatory authorities were unprepared for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), when it was introduced on 25 May 2018.

Regardless of these statistics, organisations cannot afford to become complacent, as all businesses are at risk of data breaches. Therefore, GDPR compliance must be continually enforced.

Imagine the scenario: you hold marketing data, collected from lead generation firms, meetings, seminars etc maintained as a contacts database for marketing purposes. You have already contacted some of the people on this database, but others you have not.

In order to comply with the GDPR requirements you need to know:

How is this affected by GDPR?

Do you need contact all the earlier contacts to get consent?

Can this be deemed legitimate business use?

Article 28 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) states the conditions of a data processing agreement between the data controller and the data processor.

Recently, this agreement has been brought in to question, regarding its workability and whether it is actually working in the way it is prescribed in the GDPR requirements. https://gdpr-info.eu/art-28-gdpr/

Organisations are usually established as the data controller, and the program they use acts as the data processer, i.e. Microsoft One Drive for Business, which is utilised by various companies. In accordance with Article 28 of the GDPR, an organisation should have a controller-processor agreement with their chosen software, which would usually be dictated by the data processor.

GDPR gives individuals the right to have their personal data deleted, although this is not an 'absolute' right. If you still need to retain the personal data concerned, you may be able to refuse the request. Moreover, the right to erasure does not mean you erase all the data if you have a need and legitimate interest basis to process their data for audit records. If you cannot erase data (for example, there is a legal requirement to keep certain records for 6 years) then consider restricting the processing, such as moving to archiving.

The data minimisation principles should also be applied, together with an appropriate retention period. Ensure that you inform the data subject as to what data you are keeping.

A Subject Access Request (SAR) is a written request from an individual, in relation to their access to information, which they are entitled to ask for under the Data Protection Act.

There has been some debate on what must be included in an SAR:

Recently in relation to the inclusion or exemption of confidential references. As previously, under the Data Protection Act 1998, employees had the right to access their personal information, including references from current or former employers, although employers did have the right to refuse disclose of this information to the employee. In this instance, an employee could overrule the employer’s decision by applying to the recipient employer regarding their reference, whereby the employer could not decline disclosure.

October is Cyber Security Awareness Month, which means organisations should be considering their current cybersecurity measures in an effort to prevent data breaches and cyber threats. The need to improve cybersecurity has also been amplified since results from the Cyber Security Breach Survey 2018 established that 43% of businesses have suffered a data breach in the last 12 months.

Small businesses especially should be evaluating their cybersecurity measures, as according to research from security firm Sitelock, smaller organisations are actually more at risk of a website hack, mainly due to their lack of cybersecurity and website maintenance.

Laura Dodge, Marketing Manager at Pedalo, the web development agency discussed the indispensability of implementing cybersecurity and website maintenance, stating:

Experts believe that the greatest threat to an organisation is not its lack of cybersecurity, it is actually the employees who tend to cause the most damage.

This comes after 77% of survey respondents indicated that regardless of training and adherence to company policies, it is actually employees that are the main source of cyber-attacks, as they may be unaware of the warning signs. Therefore, it is vital that companies improve cybersecurity training by implementing ways for staff to protect, as well as how to conduct themselves online, especially on social media.

As social media is an integral part of engagement - and with that comes an inherent level of trust - meaning it is vital that everybody is aware of what is safe when positing content. This is particularly the case for employees who are responding to their customers, as they must be aware of online actors who utilise fake accounts in order to pose as customers and purposely target staff and the organisation.