Half of Businesses Unsure About New EU Data Law

A study by Vanson Bourne has found that around half of businesses worldwide are unsure about whether they will be able to meet the deadline for a new EU data law that is due to come into effect next year. The General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, will become law on the 25th of May 2018. It will give EU citizens the right to order any company to stop building profiles about them, request data deletion within 30 days, move data from one provider to another, and the “right to be forgotten”. If a company fails to comply, they will be fined either 20 million Euros or 4% of their annual global revenue, whichever is larger. Despite the threat of this substantial punishment, only 31% of businesses questioned said they were ready for the GDPR law, which 47% saying they were not sure whether they would be able to meet the May 2018 deadline. The study also found that 20% of companies said they were worried that the new regulation could put them out of business, with 90% of businesses in the Asia-Pacific region not even knowing about the law. With just over a year to go until the law comes into effect, the message is clear: all businesses with EU customers, wherever the business itself is based, must ensure that they are GDPR-ready if they want to avoid hefty fines.

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