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The GDPR: Understanding the 7 data protection principles

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The European Union Data Protection Regulation, known as GDPR, is the most important thing you should know about for your business. The regulation affects how organizations collect, manage, and protect data on EU citizens. Since the Regulation applies regardless of where websites are based, it must be heeded by all sites that attract European visitors, even if they don’t specifically market goods or services to EU residents. If you’re not familiar with the regulation or what it means for your company, then this blog post will help lay out the basics to understand its importance. 

What are the seven data protection principles?

The regulation was put into effect in 2018. The GDPR regulates levy fines against those who violate its privacy and security standards, with penalties reaching into the tens of millions of euros. The GDPR is governed by seven data protection principles. Broadly, the seven principles are:

  1. Lawfulness, fairness, and transparency
  2. Purpose limitation
  3. Accuracy
  4. Data minimization
  5. Storage limitation
  6. Integrity and confidentiality (security)
  7. Accountability

Personal Data must be secured against accidental loss, damage, or destruction. Data processing must be lawful. The person concerned must give express consent for data processing for each service.

Any communication between concerned parties should be transparent and fair. Data controllers must provide unambiguous information about how, why an individual’s data is collected and processed. All relevant persons have the right to delete, correct, object, be informed, move, restrict, object to the creation of a profile regarding their data.

The collection and processing of personal data should be limited to the stated purposes only. To determine whether personal data can be processed more than the initial limit; A compatibility test should be used to look for links between purposes, nature of data, method of collection, consequences of secondary uses, and security measures.

This also points out data minimization, which means that personal data should be collected only for specific, explicit, and legitimate purposes. Keep in mind that the regulation applies to both paper and digital records, so it’s important to keep only necessary information on file.

Data storage limitation means protecting only personal data that is relevant and necessary for the purpose.

Confidentiality and integrity require personal data to be secure.

And finally, accountability means processing personal data responsibly and to demonstrate compliance with EU and member state data protection laws.

Who Is Affected by GDPR?

GDPR does not apply to EU-resident companies that offer goods or services exclusively to other residents of the EU. The regulation only applies to organizations that process the personal data of EU citizens. For example, if a US company collects and processes the data of an EU citizen, then GDPR will apply.

How Does It Affect Your Business?

The GDPR has far-reaching implications for how companies collect, store, and use personal data. If you’re in charge of data governance or business development, then you must understand the regulation to avoid any compliance issues.

Conclusion

GDPR and KVKK applications create serious workloads for institutions. As Omreon, we support companies to fulfill their listed obligations completely and follow the law. In the field of personal data protection, we produce solutions for all the criteria determined by country laws and international legislation.
If you need the right expert to analyze your business processes, make the necessary analyzes, determine the necessary applications, and install and configure them, you can contact us.