46% of firms worried about GDPR deadline

Australian businesses are expected to spend an average of $1.86 million to prepare for the introduction of the European Union's new General Data Protection Regulation, information management company Veritas predicts.

The GDPR will come into effect from 25 May next year. It will require companies to provide greater oversight on where and how personal data is stored and transferred.

Companies will also need to notify EU residents when they are collecting and retaining personal data and what the information is being used for, and must delete the data once it is no longer being used for that purpose.

The legislation is due to apply to any business that offers good and services to EU residents or monitors their buying behaviour, meaning many Australian businesses will need to be compliant.

But fewer than 30% of Australian respondents believe that their organisation is currently compliant with the regulation, and 46% are concerned they may not be able to meet the compliance deadline.

Factors hindering compliance include a lack of technology capable of addressing the regulations, with 30% of respondents worried that their current technology stack is unable to manage their data effectively and 39% reporting an inability to accurately identify and locate relevant data.

With penalties for non-compliance including fines as high as €20 million ($29.1 million) or 4% of a company's annual turnover, 23% of Australian respondents to a Veritas survey fear that non-compliance could put them out of business, and 29% are worried about potential lay-offs due to high penalties.

But only 15% of respondents fear that negative media or social coverage as a result of non-compliance would cause their organisation to lose customers, and only 5% are very concerned that their brand would be de-valued as a result of such coverage.

Image courtesy of Rock Cohen under CC

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook