The advent of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in the UK means that organisations can ill afford to ignore data subject access requests (DSARs). Potential fines for non-compliance are substantial, and, in the social media age, there is a real risk of bad publicity around breaches.
GDPR requirements
Under the GDPR, anyone can ask if your organisation holds personal information about them (they do not have to give a reason for their request), and you must respond to their request as soon as possible, usually within one month. Individuals have the right to know:
· what information is being used
· why it’s being used
· where it came from
· who can see the information
The person holding the data must provide:
· confirmation they are processing the personal data
· a copy of that data
· details of how that data is collected, used and disposed of
The data should be provided in hard copy unless the request was received by email when you can send the information by email if the data subject agrees. In most cases, the information must be provided to the data subject free of charge.
Time consuming and expensive
Although there are some exceptions, almost any organisation could find itself having to deal with DSARs from staff, customers, service users or other members of the public. Often in the context of litigation, a DSAR will be made for tactical reasons.
Given the proliferation of data now collected and held on computers, complying with any DSAR can take up significant resources and involve considerable cost.
How can we help?
At Global BPO, we help clients deal with DSARs in the most efficient and cost-effective way. We assist with finding and sorting digital documents, redacting and compiling a set of disclosable documents.
We remove the burden from your in-house team, who may otherwise be caught up in dealing with this non-productive work for some time. We can scale up quickly for large, urgent requests and scale down just as quickly when the demand reduces.
Case studies
We recently helped a domestic charity deal with a DSAR as they had insufficient in-house resources to process the matter. Understandably, costs were a major concern for them as the budget was limited, but we proved to be a very cost-effective solution.
At the other end of the scale, we also provide ongoing DSAR support to a global media company. Whilst they were concerned with ensuring value, their in-house teams also needed an easy mechanism to scale up when they were hit with DSARs, and we were delighted to step in.
By working closely with our software partners, we use the latest document review software to make the job of sorting information quick, painless, accurate and efficient.
Talk to us
For more information and to find out how we can assist you, contact our Client Manager, Suzie Young, at: suzie@globalbpo.co.uk. We are always happy to chat in confidence.
