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Cloud DATA Security

7 Questions to Ask Your Cloud Storage Provider

/ Insights      / 7 Questions to Ask Your Cloud Storage Provider

7 Questions to Ask Your Cloud Storage Provider

Cloud storage is ideal for businesses who want to reduce their hardware costs and increase productivity. You can access your files remotely from anywhere in the world safely and securely. Learn more about harnessing the power of the cloud and the benefits of storing your data online.

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Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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DATA GDPR Security

How Small Businesses Can Prepare For GDPR

/ Insights      / How Small Businesses Can Prepare For GDPR

How Small Businesses Can Prepare For GDPR

The GDPR effective date the 25th of May is approaching fast.

GDPR can be quite intimidating if you are not fully aware of what your organisation needs to do to comply and the impact this will have on your business.

Businesses that handle information of residents of the UK and EU need to act to ensure they are compliant with one of the new regulations or leave themselves open to hefty fines from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

To give businesses a nudge in the right direction the ICO has outlined 12 Steps To Take Now which will help your business understand the steps required for compliance.

Step 1 – Awareness

The first step is understandably awareness, making sure that decision makers and key personnel within the business know what the legislation is and the impact it is going to have.

Step 2 – Information You Hold

The next step is to map out the personal data you hold, where it came from and who it is shared with.

It may be prudent to hold an information audit to clearly map all of this data.

Step 3 – Communicating Privacy Information

You should review the privacy statements and notices and plan for any required changes prior to the implementation date.

Step 4 – Individual's Rights

Check your procedures to ensure they cover all the rights individuals have.

Particularly those surrounding the right to have personal data deleted or provided digitally.

Step 5 – Subject Access Requests

Update your data access procedures and plan how to handle requests within the new GDPR timescales.

Step 6 – Lawful basis for processing personal data

You should identify the lawful basis for your GPDR compliant processing activity, document it and update your privacy notice to explain it.

Step 7 – Consent

Review how you seek, record and manage the way people consent to you storing their data. Update existing consents that do not meet the GDPR standard.

Step 8 – Children

Review whether your business requires age verification or parental/guardian consent for any data processing.

Step 9 – Data Breaches

What would you do if there is a data breach? This step involves making sure you have the right procedures in place to detect, report and investigate personal data breaches.

Step 10 – Data Protection By Design and Data Protection Impact Assesments

Get comfortable with the ICO’s code of practice on Privacy Impact Assessments and the latest guidance from the Article 29 working party.

Step 11 – Data Protection Officers

It is important that you designate someone to take responsibility for data protection compliance within your organisation. You should consider whether you are required to formally designate a Data Protection Office (DPO).

Step 12 – International

If you operate in more than one country you should determine the lead data protection supervisory authority.

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

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DATA GDPR Security

Will GPDR Affect My Business?

/ Insights      / Will GPDR Affect My Business?

Will GPDR Affect My Business?

On the 25th of May GDPR, a major piece of legislation around the way businesses collect and manage data will come into effect.

This will be one of the most significant legislation changes affecting businesses for years and will affect every UK business. It represents a major culture shift in the way that data is handled by companies and will impact every UK business.

It is important that your business understands the implications and becomes compliant before the effective date of the 25th of May.

What Is GDPR

The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a set of regulations designed to give citizens and residents more control of their personal data whilst simplifying existing EU legislation.

It will affect every business that processes personal data of EU citizens and there will be penalties for those that do not comply.

Despite originating from the European Union, its implementation and enforcement in the UK will be unaffected by Brexit.

What Is Affected By GDPR

The legislation is designed to give individuals more control and rights over how businesses use their data. This will include tighter protections on what constitutes consent to store a person’s data and the right to be forgotten.

GDPR will affect any process within a business that collects or uses personal data. This will normally include marketing, IT and HR functions within the business.

For example, in the marketing of your business the process of adding someone to a marketing email list will be a lot stricter. A clear opt in will be required and cannot be presumed or added to a contract (no more pre-filled tick boxes)

What Happens If A Business Does Not Comply

Failure to comply will result in harsher penalties than previous data protection regulations. The Information Commission Office will see its fine ceiling increase from £500,000 to 20 million euros or 4% of turnover (whichever is greater).

If you would like to know more about GDPR see the Aspiring Panda blog on the steps that businesses can take to comply with GDPR or visit the ICO website

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

/ Related Content

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Security Technology

What Ashley Madison Hack Reminds Us About Internet Security

/ Insights      / What Ashley Madison Hack Reminds Us About Internet Security

What Ashley Madison Hack Reminds Us About Internet Security

Data security on the internet is a huge issue. Companies large and small spend fortunes creating infrastructures to make our data as safe as possible.

However, there continue to be high profile cases in which the sensitive data of the general public is being compromised and accessed by hackers.

With more and more data about our lives being stored online, data security is a hugely important issue, and it is an area in which public confidence has hit a new low in light of recent scandals. The latest event is a data breach surrounding the hack and subsequent bulk release of data belonging to registered Ashley Madison users.

This sight has attracted attention due to the controversial service that it provides: it was designed as a dating site for people that wanted to have affairs. It still raises serious issues about the availability of personal data.

The nature of the site and the service that it provides does not detract from the fact that users put their data on the internet in the belief that it will remain private.

The fact that hackers can access a company’s records and put them on the internet for everyone to see has rocked confidence in the ability of companies to keep our data secure. Shockingly, users of Ashley Madison had their information revealed even if they had paid the company an additional fee to remove their information.

Keeping your data secure online is extremely difficult: once you put something on the internet it is recorded. Should someone want to find it, then it is very hard to remove it to the point it cannot be found.

Therefore, it is important to make sure you share essential information only with the businesses you interact with online, and that you only put things online that you would not mind your granny seeing.

The internet is a wonderful and often scary place, make sure you are prepared and follow good data practices.

anu_panesar

Anoop Panesar

Business Development Manager

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.

/ Related Content