The internet has dramatically changed during recent years, and with that, the way we communicate and handle everyday tasks has also changed. Today, we send emails to one another, share important documents with people, pay bills by entering our personal details, and even purchase goods by entering our mobile numbers and addresses, and we do all of this without a second thought. But have you ever stopped and wondered how much personal data you have shared online so far? Or did you ever think about what happens to that information?

We’re talking about banking information, contacts, addresses, social media posts, and even your IP address and the sites that you’ve visited. Everything is stored digitally. Companies tell us that they’re collecting this type of information for the sole purpose of serving you better next time with more targeted and relevant communications. That means they collect all this information to provide you with a better customer experience.

But what do you think? Is that what they really use this data for?

This is a question that has been asked several times, and later it was answered by the EU in May 2018 when a new European privacy regulation named “GDPR” was enforced and permanently changed the way organizations collect, store, and use customer data.

However, in a study of more than 800 IT and business professionals responsible for data privacy at companies, it was found that more than 50% of businesses know nothing about GDPR. In fact, more than 27% of companies have not even begun working on making their organization GDPR compliant.

It is understandable for a small brick-and-mortar store, as they may find it difficult to prepare for GDPR. But the research also found that even 60% of tech companies aren’t ready for GDPR yet. However, no matter whether you’re in the tech industry, travel industry, retail industry, or an entrepreneur, this guide is for you, as here we’re explaining what GDPR is and how it will impact your business. Here, we’re also giving a few tips on how you can prepare for GDPR compliance.

What Is GDPR?

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a regulation that was introduced in the EU and has been implemented in local privacy laws across the EU and the EEA region. It applies to all companies that sell to or store personal information about citizens in Europe.

What GDPR means is that:

The citizens of the EU and EEA now have greater control over their personal data and the assurance that their information will be securely protected across Europe.

The GDPR directive explains that personal data is any form of information related to a person, such as:

• A name,
• A photo,
• An email address,
• Bank details,
• Updates on social networking websites,
• Location details,
• Medical information, or
• A computer IP address.

It also explains that there is no distinction between personal data of individuals in their private, public, or work roles because the person is the same individual.

What Are the Business Implications of GDPR?

This is a data protection regulation that puts the consumer in the driver’s seat. However, the responsibility of complying with this regulation falls upon businesses and organizations.

What Falls Under GDPR Compliance?

GDPR compliance applies to all kinds of businesses and organizations, especially those established in the EU. It does not depend on whether data processing takes place in the EU or not. Non-EU organizations may also be subject to GDPR, for instance, if a business offers goods or services to citizens in the EU.

Hence, organizations working with personal data are required to appoint a data protection officer who will be in charge of GDPR compliance. There are heavy penalties for companies and organizations that fail to comply with GDPR.

The EU authorities are taking GDPR extremely seriously. Just check out the following stat:

• British Airways and Marriott International have faced heavy fines for failing to comply with GDPR, amounting to hundreds of millions of euros.

What Is the Impact of GDPR on Customer Engagement of EnterpriseTech Companies?

The conditions for obtaining consent are strict under GDPR requirements because individuals have the right to withdraw consent at any time. There is also a presumption that consent is not valid unless separate consents are obtained for different processing activities.

This means that before taking an action, a company must be able to prove that an individual has agreed to that specific action. Under GDPR, it is not allowed to assume consent, and providing an opt-out option is not sufficient.

Hence, GDPR has changed many things for companies, including how sales teams prospect and how marketing activities are managed. Companies have also had to review business processes, applications, and forms to become GDPR compliant with double opt-in rules as an email marketing best practice.

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The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is the core digital privacy legislation of the European Union. However, this is a mandate that applies to organizations in all the member states, and it also has implications for businesses as well as for individuals across the EU. This mandate also applies to global parties with an EU customer or user base.

However, there are many enterprises and startups that view GDPR as a troublesome requirement, but actually this regulation can help startups streamline and improve their countless core business activities. Let’s have a look at the benefits of GDPR certification for startups 

It Provides Easier Business Process Automation 

Do you know many established enterprises use their GDPR compliance responsibilities for just taking a look at –

How well their organization is managing the data storage of their customers’ and clients’ data, the processing, and the management responsibilities?

No matter whether it is about streamlining data processing and lifecycle workflows, data hygiene and cleanup, or even greater awareness of security vulnerabilities, you can gain numerous advantages through GDPR compliance efforts that go beyond privacy considerations alone.

It Offers Increased Trust and Credibility 

GDPR’s Article 5 includes seven fundamental principles, which are as follows:

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

However, these seven principles form the basis for most of the laws within GDPR compliance. In fact, these seven principles are also becoming universal data protection principles internationally.

An organization can gain trust and credibility from customers when it can demonstrate that it follows all seven principles while making decisions regarding data protection.

• When an organization reaches full GDPR compliance, it signifies that it has achieved the highest level of data protection. This is an attribute that customers, clients, and business partners appreciate.
• Additionally, as privacy and security continue to converge, there is a requirement for a high level of data protection, which also means a high level of data security. This is an objective valued by almost every type of organization.

GDPR Provides a Better Understanding of the Data Collected 

GDPR adherence can give businesses a greater understanding of their data and how it moves throughout the organization, if approached logically. There isn’t a single function or department that doesn’t benefit from this better understanding of collected data.

With the assistance of GDPR, marketing and sales teams can gain enhanced oversight into the audience to whom they can legitimately market their products and services. This approach results in smaller and more engaged audiences that are easier to address and manage.

Not just that, but privacy initiatives trigger consolidation of data platforms, which can further benefit departments such as human resources, as it enables easier reporting and faster or better decision-making.

Plus, it helps organizations with the employee value proposition as well, which is essential to recruiting and retention. When employees know that the organization they’re working with has a solid commitment to the security of their personal data along with their clients’ data, they feel more secure in the organization they’re working in.

It Provides Improved Data Management 

It is always advised that organizations begin their GDPR compliance efforts with a regular internal data audit. So, you should –

• Analyze what data you collect,
• How much data has been collected, and
• What the data is used for.

Doing this provides you with a framework to check what you can continue collecting and what needs to cease being collected. Businesses should reinforce their data protection programs with the help of auditors, i.e., appoint someone who is in complete charge of data usage and compliance issues.

It Offers Protected and Enhanced Brand Reputation 

By protecting consumers’ privacy, organizations will not only be able to avoid potential penalties, but they will also be able to unlock hidden reputational value. Without a verifiable commitment to customer data privacy, businesses can become vulnerable to brand damage.

GDPR compliance can help organizations enhance customer loyalty over the long run while unlocking paths to greater innovation and value creation.

It is also essential for those hoping to distinguish themselves to prospective consumers. Businesses that collect and process GDPR-affected data are often required to comply with GDPR expectations to attract business customers, as enterprise compliance is tied to vendors’ GDPR adherence.

Final Takeaway 

GDPR compliance can seem overwhelming, and it can be easy to fall into the mindset that GDPR is just another compliance effort. However, it is important to understand that privacy now needs to be baked into everything your company does at every level of its organizational journey.

It’s important to understand that GDPR compliance is not an accomplishment but a process. This means it’s not simply about checking off a series of requirements, but about evolving, recalibrating, and reconsidering privacy and data protection.

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Technology is revolutionizing the healthcare industry at all stages of a patient’s journey. However, today we can find the essence of technology in everything, i.e., remote GP appointments or wristbands that count our steps. The 3D printers that are producing human cells and the robots that are carrying out surgery—there is technology everywhere, and health-tech startups are now also using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and wearables to create more personalized and accessible care.

However, at the heart of this technology, there is data, and information is paramount to the evolution of the healthcare industry. This big data requires great responsibility, and therefore privacy and security need to be integral to health-tech innovation. Hence, complying with GDPR compliance helps healthTech companies achieve the following things –

Helps in Building Trust 

Health-tech businesses rely majorly on building trust and maintaining it with their users because individuals need to feel comfortable sharing their most personal data with a commercial entity like a healthcare company. In fact, many patients are suspicious of such an exchange of personal information and important health data.

Talking about statistics, in a global survey of more than 7,800 people, it was found that 55% of people don’t trust tech companies to keep digital health information secure. There was a case in 2019 in which information about millions of NHS patients was found to be sold to pharmaceutical companies abroad.

As a result, 27% of people are willing to try virtual care from well-trusted companies such as: 

• Google,
•  Microsoft,
•  Amazon, and
•  GDPR-compliant medical startups.

Because for them, transparency is crucial, and patients want to focus on getting better in terms of their health and not on constantly checking their privacy settings.

Helps to Connect Emotionally 

Health-tech entrepreneurs can accomplish some of the most amazing things, but only if they’re given access to the right data. In the healthcare sector, more than any other sector, the patient-business relationship is emotional because the healthcare industry, by its very nature, is emotional. That means this industry can’t afford to have any error.

Only if you get the privacy of personal information right will you be able to create loyal customers who believe in your business. On the contrary, if you lose a patient’s personal health data, you could traumatize them while opening yourself up to litigation. In fact, you could also face a barrage of bad reviews on social media. This means you should put your users and their best interests first.

It Protects from Hacking 

According to some sources, medical information is among the most valuable data on the black market. This is the reason there has been a boom in ransomware attacks affecting healthcare. Cybercriminals believe they are more likely to be paid in health-tech because of the nature of services in the healthcare industry.

For instance, in 2020, the fitness wearables company “Garmin” paid $10 million to hackers to free its systems. As a result, there has been a number of attacks on public health services across Europe.

In Germany, the number of successful cyberattacks on health service providers operating critical infrastructure more than doubled in 2020 compared to 2019. Likewise, France also reported 27 major cyberattacks against health institutions recently.

HealthCare Is a Big Investment Industry 

In the UK alone, the health-tech sector has attracted more than $7.7 billion from investors over the last five years, making it the second-biggest category in the national technology sector.

The healthcare industry is so large that technology giants such as Facebook, Apple, and IBM are also eager to expand their operations into healthcare. Therefore –

Amazon has recently launched a wristband that tracks health data of health-conscious people, and
Google is expected to pay $19.7 billion to purchase Nuance Communications, a pioneer in conversational AI for the healthcare sector.

The potential for this multi-million-dollar sector is huge, but privacy is one of the most important aspects of the process. Investors want to know whether a company has the right procedures, the right training, and the right culture in place to prevent future regulatory fines or reputational damage in the event of a security breach.

Conclusion 

HealthTech is a highly regulated sector. Looking at data protection and privacy concerns, there is strict guidance governing medical devices, including –

• Software,
•  Patient care and confidentiality,
•  Clinical trials,
•  Governance,
• Advertising,
•  Public procurement, and
•  Product liability, etc.
  

However, Privacy Compliance Hubs such as GDPR compliance provide a clear and easy-to-understand checklist that employees of HealthTech organizations can follow and implement. This eventually reduces the need to remember each step. As up to 90% of data breaches are caused by human error, it is imperative that your team has the right tools to meet the regulatory demands of GDPR compliance.

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The GDPR, which stands for “General Data Protection Regulation,” is a set of laws that govern the storage and usage of important customer information and data by businesses operating within Europe.

However, GDPR compliance requires a lot of transparency from businesses to their customers regarding the collection, usage, and storage of their personal data. Moreover, it also requires that data which is no longer in use be disposed of safely, and if there is any data breach, it should be reported to the relevant authorities within 72 hours.

Although these additional regulations have proven challenging for businesses to comply with, FinTech companies are proving to be better positioned for GDPR compliance in comparison to more established financial institutions such as banks. This blog will highlight the competitive advantages that FinTech companies gain from GDPR laws.

What Results in a More Privacy-Conscious Customer Base Under GDPR?

GDPR regulations are a reactive set of laws because, prior to GDPR, there had been numerous high-profile data breaches that took place on a global scale, which also resulted in customer data falling into the wrong hands.

In fact, some businesses were also unethical in terms of how they exploited customer data in their marketing efforts. As today’s consumers are tech-savvy, they are aware of the dangers that data breaches can expose them to.

Hence, as a result, a more vigilant customer base is more likely to trust brands that are perceived as being tech-savvy. This is where FinTech companies gain an advantage over their more established and traditional financial institution competitors.

With GDPR-compliant FinTech companies, consumers can be assured about data security, as they know that the FinTech company is equipped with effective data handling processes and that its business model relies on the latest technology.

Being GDPR Compliant Is Less Costly for FinTech Companies

In general, GDPR compliance is considered to be a very costly and time-consuming process because, to be GDPR compliant, an organization needs to:

• Restructure its entire data collection,

   

• Data handling, and

   

• Storage infrastructure, among other things.

Moreover, new data destruction policies also need to be put in place to ensure that customer data is safely disposed of.

Therefore, some large, established financial institutions, such as multinational banks, may require a few months or even years to become GDPR compliant. Talking about startups, most store their data in numerous locations governed by different jurisdictions, and all of these jurisdictions may have different data handling laws.

However, this is not a problem faced by FinTech companies because:

• Most of their business is conducted online, and they already have streamlined data storage to better serve customers.

   

• Data destruction is also not a major issue for FinTech companies because most online servers have the right tools to ensure GDPR compliance.

   

• When it comes to physical drive destruction, there are affordable options such as degaussing and physical destruction of drives.

   

Overall, for FinTech companies, GDPR compliance is a cheaper and faster process, giving these companies a competitive advantage.

Implementing New Policies Is a More Agile Process for FinTech Companies 

GDPR compliance not only involves replacing the technological infrastructure a business relies on for handling and storing customer data, but it also requires an organization to overhaul its entire data management policy. This includes retraining employees, especially those who handle customer data, to ensure they understand their new duties and responsibilities under GDPR compliance.

This process can be lengthy and time-consuming, and some employees may face challenges transitioning to new rules. However, FinTech companies often find it easier to adapt to these data handling policies.

FinTech companies are accustomed to change, as they must constantly adapt to emerging technologies. Moreover, FinTech companies tend to have smaller teams compared to traditional financial institutions, making it easier to adopt and implement new policies across the organization.

GDPR Compliance Positively Affects a Brand’s Reputation 

A brand’s reputation can be a determining factor for companies operating in competitive sectors such as the FinTech industry. This has historically been a challenge for new market entrants competing against long-established financial institutions with strong brand awareness.

GDPR laws make it easier for new brands, especially FinTech companies, to compete with more established competitors.

GDPR compliance signals a brand’s commitment to privacy in its target market and can immediately make new clients more comfortable working with a brand that may not yet have strong market recognition.

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