FINAL WORD
GDPR: General
solutions for
data protection
regulation
Now that the EU’s GDPR has been in
force for more than two years, Antoine Harb,
Team Leader Middle East and North Africa at
Kingston Technology, provides a reminder to
businesses about their obligation to enforce
stronger privacy protections and breach
disclosure requirements.
At the onset of April 2016, the European Parliament approved
the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), replacing its
outdated Data Protection Directive which was introduced way
back in 1995, and the legislation brought into force on 25 May 2018.
The uniformity in GDPR makes it unique; unlike a directive that allows
each of the 28 members of the EU to adopt and customise the law
to the needs of its citizens, GDPR requires its full adoption with no
leeway making it compulsory for every country to comply with. It
applies to any organisation having data of European citizens.
All organisations in the Middle East and Africa with any connection
to Europe – whether through customers, affiliates or business
partners – are impacted by the GDPR. The steps complying to the
GDPR are supplemented by existing measures that many corporates
in the region had adopted as a matter of good practice or to comply
with local regimes.
Need for a law against data collection
A lot of organisations solely depend on customer acquisition via
data collection that helps them to target and retarget their potential
customers if they missed out on converting them before. Google,
Apple, Facebook and Amazon hold huge amounts of customer data
and frequently have been under the scrutiny of their users regarding
the amount of data these organisations seek. The introduction of
GDPR plays a pivotal role in the awareness of consumers and where
they share their data now.
Antoine Harb, Team Leader Middle East and North Africa at Kingston
Technology, said: “GDPR regulations would keep a lot of companies
under check when it comes to regulating data. Also, GDPR could
serve as a catalyst for nations in the Middle East to enforce stronger
privacy protections and breach disclosure requirements.”
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