VERIDIAN GDPR Solutions

Why is the GDPR so important for your consulting firm?

• Legal compliance: Failure to comply with the GDPR can result in heavy fines of up to €20 million or 4% of annual global turnover, whichever is higher.

• Building trust: Customers and business partners value the protection of their data. Transparent and compliant data processing strengthens your company's trust and reputation.

• Competitive advantage: Companies that actively pursue data protection stand out positively from competitors and signal professionalism and a sense of responsibility.

• Risk minimization: Careful data processing minimizes the risk of data breaches that can lead to financial losses, reputational damage, and legal disputes.

Key elements of the GDPR that are relevant for your consulting firm

To effectively implement the GDPR, you should pay particular attention to the following points:

1. Transparency and legality of data processing

You must always have a legitimate reason (e.g., consent, contract fulfillment, legitimate interest) for processing personal data. Inform data subjects clearly and comprehensibly about what data you collect, for what purpose, and for how long it is stored. This is usually done via a privacy policy on your website and at the time of data collection.

2. Purpose limitation and data minimization

Collect only the data you truly need for a specific and predefined purpose. Avoid storing unnecessary data and delete data once the purpose has been fulfilled or the statutory retention period has expired.

3. Rights of data subjects

Ensure that you can respect and implement the rights of data subjects. These include:

• Right to information: The right to receive information about the data processed.

• Right to rectification: The right to have inaccurate data corrected.

• Right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”): The right to request the erasure of data if there are no legal grounds for continued storage.

• Right to restriction of processing: The right to restrict the processing of certain data.

• Right to data portability: The right to receive data in a commonly used format and to transmit it to another controller.

• Right to object: The right to object to the processing of personal data.

4. Technical and organizational measures (TOM)

Protect the processed data against unauthorized access, loss, or destruction by implementing appropriate technical and organizational measures. These include:

• Encryption: Sensitive data should be encrypted, both during transmission and storage.

• Access controls: Only authorized employees should have access to certain data.

• Backups: Regular backups are crucial to prevent data loss.

• Data protection training: Raise awareness and regularly train your employees on how to handle personal data.

• Data breach procedures: Establish clear processes for dealing with data breaches, including reporting obligations to the supervisory authority and data subjects.

5. Order processing

If you engage service providers (e.g., cloud providers, marketing agencies) to process personal data on your behalf, you must enter into data processing agreements (DPAs) . These agreements govern the service provider's data protection obligations and ensure compliance with GDPR requirements.

6. List of processing activities

Maintain a record of all processing activities in which you document which personal data you process and for what purpose, which categories of people are affected, which recipients receive the data and which technical and organizational measures have been taken to protect the data.

7. Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA)

In certain cases, in particular when introducing new technologies or processing operations that are likely to pose a high risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons, you must carry out a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) .

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