Pitmans Law presents seven simple steps to get GDPR ready

Today William Richmond-Coggan, Pitmans Law Head of GDPR, spoke at the first annual Public Sector Data & GDPR Summit, hosted by GovNet communications.

The summit, held at the Victoria Park Plaza, informed and prepared public sector leaders on the upcoming GDPR legislation and Data Protection Bill and discussed the opportunities for innovation and transformation within the sector.

Public sector organisations have significant preparations to make to become GDPR compliant by May 2018. According to the ICO, 37% of councils in the UK do not have a data sharing policy and 15% of UK councils do not train employees who process personal data.

Will hosted the seminar “Ready? Set? – Seven simple steps to get you to Go for GDPR”, which covered off a series of simple steps to get GDPR ready, including getting to grips with your data estate and identifying and mitigating risk. Download the step by step guide here. Keen to focus on the opportunities of GDPR rather than the penalties, he said: “Don’t be afraid of GDPR – it is undoubtedly a challenge but our clients are finding that they are in a stronger, better place for complying with it.” He also busted some of the most common GDPR myths around the headline grabbing fines and the over-use of consent as a basis for processing data lawfully.

Chaired by Baroness Neville-Rolfe DBE CMG, member of the European Union Committee, the Summit brought together senior government officials and NHS leaders as well as other leading data protection experts from National Rail, techUK, Bank of England, National Cyber Security Centre and more.