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TRENDING
THE IMPACT OF
THE GENERAL DATA
PROTECTION REGULATION
After a prolonged period of two years, the General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR), a wide-reaching new piece of
European legislation, has come into full force. Daniel Lötter,
Head: Bids and Tenders at managed service provider Itec
Southern Africa, and Gregg Petersen, Regional Sales Vice
President, Middle East & Africa at Veeam, assess its impact.
T
he direct consequence of GDPR is
serious, including fines of up to 4%
annual global turnover or a flat €20
million, whichever is more. Even if local
companies are not in the firing line, GDPR
could severely impact their relationships with
European companies:
“If you handle any information of an EU
citizen or you have an EU citizen on your
board, or anything like that, then you have
to be GDPR compliant,” said Lötter. “If you
want to do business with European resident
countries, from a supplier or a vendor point
of view, you also have to be compliant.
“Compliance is very serious. GDPR has been
in a honeymoon period since 2016 and that
www.intelligentcio.com
has come to an end. It brings some very
stiff penalties along with it and European
regulators will want to show it has teeth.
Once one or more companies receive fines,
many will follow the rules. That means
anyone part of their value chain who isn’t
compliant will at the least be cut off. So even
if the prospect of direct fines and penalties
can be low for South African companies, the
knock-on effects will still make this felt. You
have to find out how exposed you are.”
GDPR is more than just a law. It is being
treated as an example of the shifting
regulatory environment around data usage.
As revealed by the recent problems at
Facebook, not to mention countless data
breaches of companies around the world,
“
GOVERNMENTS
AND SOCIETIES
ARE RESPONDING
TO PROTECT
THIS RESOURCE,
AS WELL AS
THE SOURCES
THAT PROVIDE
THE DATA.
INTELLIGENTCIO
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