Data protection in Europe is going through a significant change. After years of waiting, the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR) entered into force earlier this year and shall apply as from 25 May 2018. This means that the two-year countdown of transition period has begun, during which businesses processing personal data have to become compliant with the new obligations.
Privaon has been conducting a yearly study to examine the companies’ attitudes towards the chancing privacy legislation since 2014. The purpose of the study has been to examine the Finnish companies’ awareness of changes on the data protection legislation and to find out how willing controllers have been to adapt measures to meet the GDPR´s obligations. On the basis of the results, analyzing of how the companies’ attitudes has changed during the preparation of the regulation has been possible.
The latest study conducted in spring 2016 showed that the general level of awareness on data protection issues has increased substantially. Growing number of controllers are taking steps to align policies to meet the obligations of the new regulation: up to 73% of the respondents said that they will start preparation for the new data protection legislation during this year.
At the same time more and more of the organizations told that they will need help to reach the compliance with the GDPR: up to 50% of controllers said that they are planning to use external services to implement the actions required by the GDPR. These results indicate that there will be an increasing need of experts in the field of data protection and it is expected that new business opportunities for Finnish companies will open up in the coming years.