Living in the digital world means, among other things, being aware of the vulnerability of your data and doing your best to protect it. This goes for individuals as much as for organizations that are responsible for ensuring compliance with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and thus for protecting the personal info of individuals.
One of the best things you can do to make sure that you are staying compliant with the regulations is to conduct regular data privacy audits. Click this to learn some more on how that is done.
If you’ve heard of this already, and if you have some ideas on the necessity of conducting such audits, then chances are you want to learn even more about all of it first and then understand how to achieve compliance with the mentioned regulations.
So, this is what we are going to do. Below, I will answer some of those important questions that you have about the GDPR data privacy audits, which will hopefully shed some light on their significance and how you can carry them out. Without any more ado, let us start answering those questions for you.
What Is a GDPR Data Privacy Audit?
Let’s begin with the basics. What exactly is a GDPR data privacy audit? In a few words, it is a comprehensive and systematic assessment of an organization’s practices for data protection, as well as of its processes for ensuring compliance with the requirements that have been set forth by the GDPR.
All of the data processing activities, procedures, and policies are assessed with the aim of ensuring compliance. The audit consists of checking how the personal data is collected, as well as how it is stored, processed, and protected by the organization.
The effectiveness of the data breach response plan is assessed, and so are data transfer practices and employee training and awareness. It is aimed at identifying any weak spots and non-compliance issues and then taking appropriate actions to address those.
What Are Its Benefits?
You are now most likely wondering what the benefits of a data privacy audit actually are. Why is it so important, and why should you think about doing it in the first place? These are all quite important questions, so let me now provide you with the answers and make the significance of this process completely clear.
In short, this audit is necessary because it evaluates the current data protection level in your company, thus allowing you to define the actions and the measures that have to be taken in order to achieve compliance.
Through making sure that your company is on the right track legally, the audits also help you avoid losing clients and paying some fines. Naturally, all of that helps you gain a competitive advantage.
Apart from ensuring compliance, this kind of process will also help identify risks and vulnerabilities in your organization in terms of data processing activities. Thus, it allows you to enhance data protection, as well as to demonstrate your commitment to it.
Then, maintaining compliance through regular audits and showing commitment results in building trust with your stakeholders by letting them know that your company is capable of handling their personal information ethically and responsibly.
Does Your Business Need It?
Wondering whether your business actually needs this type of audit? Well, to give you the short answer, if you want to stay in compliance with the GDPR, you will certainly need it. And, if compliance isn’t enough, then I’ve already mentioned a few other reasons above why you should conduct these audits on a regular basis.
This particular process is required for basically any company that collects and processes data from UK and European citizens. So, if you are not sure whether you need to get a GDPR compliance assessment, just think about what your company is doing and whether it is collecting the mentioned data – because that should give you a quick answer to the question.
Who Can Carry It Out?
If you are not sure who can carry out these audits, then you also don’t know which steps to take next and how to do the right thing for your company.
In short, there are professionals out there who have the proper qualifications and the right educational background to do this kind of work, so you shouldn’t think you can wing it and do it alone. Instead, you should always have a great professional on your side.
Having great professionals on your side can mean two things, though. The process can be handled by the right in-house staff, but then you can also rely on external service providers.
The latter is the more common option among organizations, given that it means you are paying solely for the services you are receiving periodically instead of paying a salary to someone to be a part of your team at all times while not having too much work to do until the time comes for the audit to be conducted.
Furthermore, an outside perspective is always a good thing, as it offers a more objective overview of everything, thus allowing you to get a better idea of what may be lacking in your organization in terms of data protection measures, as well as what to do to achieve and maintain compliance.
How to Get It Done?
So, how can you actually get this done? Well, the most significant thing to understand is that, as I’ve explained above already, this should never be done by people who aren’t skilled in it, as that would lead to some wrong findings and possibly missing some important information regarding the risks you may be facing and the protection measures you should be taking.
And, as I’ve also talked about, the best thing to do would be to hire an external services provider for the job because they will know how to handle the audit perfectly while also providing you with the necessary outside perspective without their judgment being clouded by being a part of your organization.
The question, though, is how you can choose the right service provider to be your partner in this particular process.
In order to make the best choice, you should carefully research various companies that you will find on the market and check their experience levels, their reputation, as well as the prices of the services they are offering. By getting all the info I’ve mentioned, you’ll be able to compare it and ultimately choose the provider that you believe could be best for you.
