How to Train Every Employee on GDPR

Contributed article in our business series. Enjoy! – Kimberly

Data has been a key tool for organizations all over the world for years. Data is at the core of how businesses are built. Through data, we learn about consumers and generate profit. However, it has also left many online users feeling like their privacy has been invaded as data is misused in many ways.

The General Data Protection Regulation hopes to address many of these concerns by ensuring there is more protocol when it comes to data collection, use, and storage. This article will highlight some key factors to training every employee on GDPR.

Teach Them What GDPR is

Employees need to know what GDPR is in order to be effectively trained on the subject. Understanding the regulations and the implications these can have on your organization is imperative. One idea is to enroll them in short and affordable GDPR courses so that they understand the fundamentals. Once they have grasped a general idea, your employees can go on to understand how it applies in context to your organization.

Explain the Key Components

GDPR consists of a few key components, so it’s vital that you go through each one with your employees. Below is a summary of those to be familiar with:

Consent– When teaching employees about GDPR, consent is one of the core factors to focus on. This requires that you explain clearly to your consumers what you’re doing with their data and give them the choice to opt out. It’s imperative that you tell your employees how to approach disclosing certain information, getting consent, and deleting user data if they choose to opt out.

Breach-Another component of the regulation is a breach of data. This more or less requires that when a data breach occurs, you inform relevant parties whether it be consumers or law enforcement within 72 hours of your knowledge of the breach. You should, therefore emphasize how important it is for employees to notify you in such an instance. Putting measures in place to protect user data is also key.

Rights– The new regulation focuses a lot on the rights of the users or consumers. This means that they have a right to know what’s being done with their data. They can also request and transfer it if they wish to.

Privacy-In past times, it was possible that organizations were collecting large amounts of data that they didn’t need. However, the new regulation makes it necessary to evaluate the data you’re collecting and only take what you need as well as be careful what you do with it.

Conduct Regular Evaluations

It is imperative that you carry out regular evaluations of your data collection and processing methods if you want to avoid a data breach. You should, therefore, train your employees how to evaluate their compliance with this regulation on a regular basis. This could mean creating a  checklist, doing regular audits, or carrying out assessments. The goal should be to ensure everyone who handles data, including 3^rd parties, are GDPR compliant.

Training your employees on GDPR is critical if you want to avoid fines. Such fines can be crippling to your organization. It’s critical that you train your staff on the regulations and how to apply them to the work they do on a daily basis. By doing so, you can ensure that, in the process of collecting and using data, you comply.

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