Data protection and privacy are becoming a very important agenda for many businesses as the implementation of GDPR approaches in May 2018. One of the key areas of GDPR is that businesses should make data protection and privacy a fundamental component and key consideration in all of their systems and processes – this means privacy by design (and default). Article 25 of the GDPR states:
“the controller shall, both at the time of the determination of the means for processing and at the time of the processing itself, implement appropriate technical and organizational measures and procedures, […], which are designed to implement data protection principles.”
Privacy by design is a clever approach to new projects or services that promotes privacy and data protection compliance from the very beginning, rather than being forgotten about, ignored or added on as an after-thought. Privacy by design is an essential tool that greatly minimises privacy risks, but also has a range of other benefits that include:
- Increased awareness of GDPR, privacy and data protection within an organization
- Organisations are more likely to meet legal obligations
- Significantly reduced organisational strain in regards of privacy and data protection management
- Any potential issues are identified early, so that addressing them is often simpler and less costly
- Organisations are less likely to breach the Data Protection Act or GDPR (implemented in May 2018)
