What does ‘GDPR’ stand for?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a law that governs how organizations process personal data. GDPR can be considered as the world’s strongest set of data protection rules, which enhance how people can access information about them and place limits on what organizations can do with personal data.

Payroll data is inherently personal so your business must ensure GDPR compliance when handling and processing it. GDPR defines personal data as ‘information that relates to an ‘identified or identifiable individual’. If it is possible to identify an individual directly from the information you are processing then that information may be personal data. It’s highly likely that payroll data will include personally identifiable data. Not only that, it will probably include highly sensitive information. Under GDPR, special categories of data are recognized as that require a greater level of protection.

The GDPR gives data subjects more control over how their personal data is processed and places a range of obligations on organizations that process and control the processing of personal data.

The benefits of GDPR compliance

The business benefits of GDPR compliance include:

• Building customer trust;
• Improving brand image and reputation;
• Reducing the risk of data breaches;
• Increasing information security; and
• Gaining competitive advantage.

GDPR fines and penalties for non-compliance

Today, the GDPR Regulation is said to be the world’s most stringent data protection law with the harshest fines and penalties levied on organizations for breach of data or for being noncompliant. While not all infringements of the GDPR will lead to serious fines, given below are some of the administrative fines that can be levied on organizations. Typically there are two levels of fines charged, based on the different GDPR criteria’s drawn out by the regulation and they are as follows-

• The first is up to €10 million or 2% of the company’s global annual turnover of the previous financial year, whichever is higher.
• The second is up to €20 million or 4% of the company’s global annual turnover of the previous financial year, whichever is higher.

Summary

Stringent data protection law backed by heavy fines and penalty aims to ensure that organizations adopt industry best practices to secure their environment and protect the Personal Data of citizens. The possible GDPR fines and penalties resulting from non-compliance with the Regulation highlights how essential it is for organizations to take the GDPR Regulation seriously and prepare organizations for achieving Compliance. The fines stated in the GDPR Regulation are applicable for any organization big or small, national or international, non-compliant to GDPR.