The European General Data Protection Regulation brought in a lot of concerns for people all over the world. With so many data breaches, data loss and security problems, the EU decided that they need to implement a way to regulate and protect the way people share and manage their personal information online. Personal data needs to be taken care of, and that means there are new regulations when it comes to storing data. The European Union did a great job bringing in the GDPR to light, but data storage under GDPR is a challenge now and you have to figure out the right way to complete this adequately without having to deal with problems.
What does the European Union say about retaining personal data?
The focus on GDPR is on data minimization, when it comes to how much data is kept and for how much time it ends up retained. Until now, many companies kept data forever, but the GDPR helps eliminate that. Data needs to be kept only for what amount of time is needed, nothing more and nothing less. There are situations where the personal data might be needed, for example scientific or historical research. But other than that there will always be some sort of limits, so you have to use that as an advantage as much as possible.
Is data storage under GDPR allowed?
Yes, the need for data storage is there, as this is very important for advertising and many other factors. But what you want to realize is that data storage under GDPR is always going to be a bit challenging because now there are new regulations to abide to. First, you need to have a dedicated way for people to share their consent that they actually want you to keep their data. If a customer does not agree with cloud storage or cloud based storage regulations, then you must delete their data. It’s as simple as that, and while there are bound to be challenges along the way, the payoff will be good if you handle this properly.
Also, if you want to focus on storing GDPR data, the customer needs to know exactly how much time you want to store that info or use it. If he wants you to keep the data indefinitely until he needs it, then you need to provide a form to show that. There are all these small rules that you really need to think about, and the faster you do that, the easier the results will be as time goes by.
Is data storage under GDPR more challenging now?
In some cases yes, and that’s mostly because the providers and data controllers will have shared liability. Figuring out who handles what approach and which party needs to do the other stuff might seem simple, but it can end up being very challenging and difficult. It makes a lot of sense to adapt and adjust everything as much as possible, and the payoff alone can be second to none.
Then you also have to think about backup copies. The problem here is that data storage under GDPR doesn’t really focus on backups that you might have to perform from time to time. The data controller needs to ensure that there are time limits on that too. And obviously the customer needs to sign off on that to ensure that you are allowed to keep any copies of their data. Obviously you also need to see just for how long you want to store that data in the first place.
Handling data storage under GDPR in multiple locations
Most companies tend to have data stored in multiple locations or across a variety of backup servers. But if the customer wants you to remove all his data, then you will have to do that. Yet finding all the instances of that data and where it’s located can be very challenging. That’s why you need to have all the data duplicated in multiple locations in the exact manner. If you split data in smaller pieces over multiple servers, the chances of being able to delete everything will be way harder. Because you might end up forgetting about some stuff and that will be a true challenge and problem to say the least.
This is not a sustainable data storage method, but issues can and might appear at times, and you do want to avoid rushing as you focus on results. Traditional backup might not offer you the best way to remain compliant, so finding some of the other options out there might be the best thing that you want to focus on. Also, things like archiving solutions deliver great serialization and they also bring in additional security layers. Archive systems can be great if you want to focus on backing up data adequately, and in the end it’s all up to you to choose how to optimize and customize everything in a way that works.
You also need to have a failsafe system in case the data storage solution gets hacked or corrupted. Improving the data protection levels is a must under GDPR and you have to implement that wisely and with the right approach in order to make it work. Otherwise you are bound to deal with some problems here and there that might end up being a challenge to solve usually.
As you can see, data storage under GDPR is quite complex and it comes with its own set of layers and things to consider. But you do have to keep in mind that with help from data storage under GDPR you will be able to achieve great benefits and the potential on its own is second to none. As long as you know how to implement data storage under GDPR and as you follow the rules you will be fine. Any problems that you will avoid will be great to focus on, as you finally take a much better attention on things that you want to do and you want to tackle in a meaningful way!