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Decoding Europe’s New Data Protection Law
News:
- European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) poses a serious challenge for Indian IT companies
Important Facts:
- GDPR aims to protect EU citizens from data breaches
- It was approved by EU Parliament in April 2016 and came to effect in May 25, 2018
- The GDPR provides for a heavy penalty of €20 million or 4% of company’s global revenue for non-compliance
- Any organisation providing goods and services to EU comes under the ambit of GDPR. In India, a major focus is on IT/ITES companies which account for 7% of GDP
- In India, many IT organizations are not prepared for GDPR compliance. Only 30-35% has started work towards achieving GDPR compliance
- Large Indian IT companies are well prepared due to economies of scale. However, the impact of GDPR on SMEs and start-ups is a concern as the cost of compliance for them is high
- The introduction of GDPR will positively impact on the way data is handled by companies and will boost consumer trust
- In India, there has been a rise in demand and application for data protection jobs since 2017 and is expected to continue so after the introduction of GDPR
- Recently, Mauritius has also introduced strong data protection law in the lines of GDPR. Further, India has also been working on data protection law- some of the attributes of the draft policy are supposed to be similar to GDPR
