What Your Staff Members Need to Know About GDPR Compliance
admin
Protecting your business against accidental data breaches should be your number one priority. Training your staff is the best defence you have. Here’s what they need to know.
Under UK GDPR, businesses must implement appropriate measures to protect personal data – and training your staff is an essential part of that. Without robust GDPR training, your staff could be putting your business at risk of non-compliance and data breaches, as well as subsequent fines and reputational damage.
In this blog post, we discuss the key elements that must be included in your GDPR training and how to choose the right course for you.
What The GDPR Principles Look Like In Practice
There are seven core principles to GDPR:
- Lawfulness, Fairness & Transparency
- Purpose Limitation
- Data Minimisation
- Accuracy
- Storage Limitation
- Integrity & Confidentiality
- Accountability
Your staff should have an understanding of what each of these core principles mean and how they apply to their day-to-day. For example, only collecting necessary data (data minimisation), keeping data accurate and up to date (accuracy) and secure handling and storage (storage limitation and integrity & confidentiality).
Many GDPR compliance failures occur when staff understand the principles in theory, but don’t know how to apply them in real situations.
The GDPR training you choose should focus on real-life scenarios, not just the theory.
How to Handle Personal Data
Most businesses process personal data, so understanding what does and doesn’t fall into that category, and how it should be handled, is really important. Things like emails, CCTV, HR records and customer databases are all considered personal data.
Your employees should be able to identify personal data and be confident in handling it correctly, to ensure privacy in accordance with GDPR principles.
What the Lawful Bases for Processing Are
You must have a valid reason for collecting or using personal information in your business. There are six ‘lawful bases’:
- Consent
- Contract
- Legal obligation
- Vital interests
- Public task
- Legitimate interests
Your staff should know which of these is the most appropriate for what you’re doing with people’s information. Each of these lawful bases have their own stipulations, so it’s important that your employees understand which one applies to your business.
How to Deal With Data Subject Rights and Requests
A data subject is anyone who can be identified by personal data, usually customers, employees and service users. GDPR gives data subjects certain rights, including the right to access, correct and delete the personal data you might hold about them.
Knowing what these rights are and how to handle a data subject access request is vital to protecting your business.
How to Identify Data Breaches and Report Incidents
Does your team know what a data breach is? And do they know how to respond in the event of an incident? The faster your staff can identify a breach and act on it, the better it will be for your business in the long run. You will be able to prevent accidental breaches in the future, protect against malicious attacks, and hopefully mitigate any lasting impact.
Choosing the Right GDPR Training
Good data protection training includes scenario-based learning, the UK regulatory context and is refreshed regularly. It should be tailored to your business needs, including your staff’s roles, and the type of personal data they handle.
GDPR Training Courses From Data Protection People
Our training courses are bespoke to you. Our experts have years of practical experience and can create a data protection training course that equips your staff with the knowledge and confidence to make the right decisions when it matters.