The last-minute scramble to comply with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation is truly on.
Companies worldwide are finally looking to see what they have to do to avoid falling foul of GDPR because they know that if they do, they face heavy fines.
These fines could be particularly punitive at the beginning as the EU and its administrative arm, the European Commission, look to strengthen the setup.
Among this scramble are companies offering GDPR compliance services. One example is Convercent. Describing itself as a provider of “ethics and compliance software”, Convercent has launched new platform capabilities designed to help global customers achieve compliance with GDPR requirements via the Convercent Ethics Cloud platform.
GDPR represents the most sweeping change to data legislation in decades, designed to protect citizens' rights. On May 25, 2018 thousands of global organisations will be required to comply with its regulations or be subject to fines.
Convercent says “enhanced GDPR capabilities” will be available later this month, and will give customers of all sizes and industries a solution for “not only staying compliant with GDPR, but also doing so with unmatched flexibility and control”.
Convercent's new enhancements are integrated directly into the existing Ethics Cloud platform, designed to target the biggest challenges of GDPR compliance. Specifically GDPR introduces a right for individuals to have personal data erased.
In such Right to Erasure cases, compliant organizations run the risk of losing precious historical data – context that's critical in future analysis or investigations requiring the ability to identify patterns of behaviour.
With Convercent's new features customers can redact only the sensitive information subject to GDPR, while preserving important context and maintaining overall data fidelity.
Philip Winterburn, chief product officer at Convercent, says: “GDPR reform marks a dramatic shift in how businesses handle sensitive data and requires that organizations make massive adaptations to comply with this new standard in global data privacy.
“We steadfastly believe in the power of data and the Convercent cloud software to streamline compliance programs and drive ethics to the center of business.
“That belief extends to the critical area of data privacy, and our new offerings will enable customers to comply without sacrificing the fidelity of their valuable data history.”
GDPR requires organisations to implement structured systems for accessing, editing, and deleting personal data. Convercent says its platform allows customers to easily track changes, control access and manage personal data throughout the design and development of any new products or services.
Convercent adds that its Audit Program maintains a record of redaction events, while removing any historical reference to personal information.
Michael Rasmussen, industry pundit with GRC 20/20, says: “The GDPR regulation is a positive move forward for consumer privacy, yet it creates challenges for chief ethics and compliance officers who rely on this data to identify and manage ethical issues and cases in the organization.
“Convercent's Ethics Cloud platform enables global companies to comply with GDPR regulations without compromising the integrity of the overall case and campaign data which is essential for a successful compliance program.”
