Kiosk Solutions Feb-Mar 2018 | Page 21

GDPR The impact of GDPR How the regulation will impact multinational businesses and how they must prepare themselves By Nigel Crockford, Business Development Manager, eSpida – www.espida.co.uk Benjamin Franklin once said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” This statement will ring especially true for multinational businesses in the coming months as the GDPR comes into force across the European Union. By uniting 28 different EU member state laws under one data protection law, GDPR is set to harmonise data protection laws throughout the EU giving greater rights to individuals. Taking effect on 25 May 2018, every business will need to alter their existing procedures to ensure the correct mechanisms to comply with GDPR are in place. Failure to comply with the regulation will result in costly penalties of 4% of global annual turnover or €20 million, whichever value is greater. Non-compliant businesses could also be faced with bans or suspensions on processing data, in addition to the risk of class actions and criminal sanctions. GDPR and multinationals To enforce the regulation, each country will have its own national data protection act (DPA) regulator that will oversee and manage any breaches. Businesses operating in multiple EU countries have frequently asked since the announcement of GDPR