GDPR Certification: Step by Step Guide

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) hasn’t just shaken up data privacy in Europe – it’s become a global trendsetter. Its influence has rippled across the world, inspiring similar laws and raising the bar for data protection everywhere.

 Brazil’s Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD) and India’s proposed Personal Data Protection Bill share DNA with GDPR. Even in places without direct equivalents, GDPR has sparked conversations about data rights and privacy.

For global businesses, GDPR certification often serves as a solid foundation for meeting these emerging standards. It’s becoming a common denominator in the world of data protection, setting a benchmark that others are measured against.

TL;DR 

General Data Protection Regulation certification helps businesses prove that they are GDPR-compliant, meaning they protect European citizens from data loss due to cybercrime, terrorism, unethical business practices, and more

The fines for noncompliance with GDPR can be up to 4% of the annual revenue or €20 million, whichever is higher

GDPR is an essential compliance measure for doing business in the EU or dealing with data of citizens from the EU

What is GDPR?

The GDPR legislation is a landmark privacy legislation requiring companies that do business with EU citizens to comply. This means that most global businesses have felt its impact.

A survey by Thomson Reuters revealed that over 91 percent of companies are aware of the GDPR. Still, more than half of them struggled with compliance due to a lack of clarity on organizational measures or an inability to execute them.

In this blog, we look to help you understand all about GDPR compliance from scratch and how you can achieve compliance with these data protection laws.

The history of GDPR: How did the landmark legislation change the privacy landscape? 

The GDPR legislation went into effect on May 25, 2018, before which there was a 2 year grace period where companies had a chance to change policies to comply with the legislation. However, despite this period, companies were still struggling to meet the standards as there was a lot of ambiguity.

Once the grace period was over, it opened up a Pandora’s box of compliance concerns for businesses, with the fines and stakes at an all-time high and no clear path to achieving it.

In fact, a survey by Reuters revealed that over 79% of businesses failed to meet regulatory requirements after GDPR implementation compared to 72% before. This was especially true for the US, where 64% of businesses reported noncompliance. 

What is GDPR Certification?

GDPR certification proves to EU regulatory bodies such as EDPB (European Data Protection Board) and customers that businesses are GDPR compliant and adhere to required data protection principles. 

A GDPR compliance certification can be obtained from relevant accreditation bodies such as EuroPrise, TRUSTe, ISO 27001 ISMS, and Cyber Essentials and will eventually be offered by EDPB.

Understand the effort involved in a GDPR certification for your business, and calculate the man-hours required across teams using our compliance effort calculator. 

Key principles of GDPR Certification: Intent behind the framework

The key principles of GDPR are: 

• Lawfulness, fairness, transparency
• Purpose limitation 
• Data minimization 
• Accuracy
• Storage limitation
• Integrity and confidentiality
• Accountability

Importance of GDPR: Safeguard people’s privacy against big business

1. GDPR compliance aims to protect the data of EU citizens and provide data protection along with enforcing the right to privacy.
2. It gives teeth to EDPB to enforce huge fines on businesses that do not adhere to these regulations in their data processing operations and management systems.
3. It prevents data misuse and opacity that has plagued the tech sector, especially monopolies, which have a lot of lobbying power to flout legal obligations.
4. Achieving GDPR compliance also helps companies protect against data breaches or litigation that can cost the company to the tune of millions of Euros.

A few instances where GDPR has been invoked to protect the rights of EU citizens include:

1. Amazon was fined €746 million by Luxembourg’s data protection body for its opaque data collection practices. 
2. Whatsapp has been fined 225 million by the Ireland Data Protection Body for data breach and transparency.

Check out this video on GDPR fines and their impact on businesses to understand the ramifications of noncompliance with certification criteria.

How to get GDPR certification (The right way)?

From raising awareness and getting buy-in on GDPR to defining an actual process, figuring out how to get started can be overwhelming. That’s why it’s important to have a checklist in mind when starting this journey. 

While we will cover most of the steps below, to get a more detailed understanding of what it takes to implement GDPR compliance, you can download our GDPR audit checklist below.