GDPR: An additional burden for the data industry?

The concern of companies on the challenges of implementing the GDPR is very real. Will we know if we are still capable of doing business starting in May 2018? What will be the technical and, above all, the financial impacts of this compliance?

Let’s face it, there is still the “Y2K-like bug” effect with the arrival of the GDPR…Many enterprises perceive GDPR as an additional burden in the data industry, which is already far from easy. They find themselves in the grey area trying to implement this regulation and to avoid the heavy penalties for non-compliant companies.

The GDPR must be seen as an opportunity to reach a certain maturity in terms of governance and data control. Above all, it means establishing a contract of trust between data subjects and data controllers. Without a doubt, this contract of trust will benefit everyone!

For instance, individuals are rather reluctant to give their personal information to companies. However, numerous studies show that in the context of a new deal where personal data are delivered for a specific purpose and can be restored or deleted at any time, users are willing to share their personal data. It is, therefore, an opportunity to offer value-added services to customers – a give and take.

For organizations, the GDPR will bring greater confidence as well as an excellent reputation for processing data, which will result in more commitment.

The GDPR is also an opportunity to check up on data in enterprises:

• Clean up the wrong data.
• Avoid (costly) over-acquisition of data.
• Establish or improve data governance.
• Implement best practices around Big Data and Data Science initiatives.

Thus, this new control and governance of data will result in taking the best insights from these data so that from these, you can make creations of the highest value.

What does the legal jargon of GDPR mean in the end, which we have detailed in our series of articles “GDPR – the legal bases”? It is certainly a question of making companies responsible for the data used. Hence, this regulation requires you to ask the right questions:

Thus, the arrival of the GDPR  impacts mainly our legal and organizational areas of business. This regulation will also be the time to implement technological initiatives in our Big Data ecosystems, which will not only help enterprises comply with the regulation but will also have intrinsic value.  In our opinion, the first thing that needs to be done is to map the personal data used and stored within your enterprise. Data Catalog tools can be the beginning of such a response.