The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) places considerable responsibility on both controllers and processors concerning keeping documentation, providing information to data subjects and demonstrating accountability.
In order to enforce compliance with the principles of GDPR, controllers need to turn their attention inwards and ensure that they have in place appropriate policies and procedures. At the same time, they need to turn their attention outwards towards the relationship that they have with processors of all shapes and sizes to ensure that adequate contractual controls are in place between the controller and each processor. Also, when looking outwards, the controller needs to have regard to the transparent information or privacy notices being directed at data subjects.
The processors equally have to attend to the enforcement of compliance with GDPR by addressing their contractual terms with their clients (who will be controllers) as well as understanding that as a processor they will need to support the compliance of the controller, put in place their own record keeping procedures, information security standards, and data protection impact assessments. Furthermore, each processor that is caught by GDPR may well be a controller in its own right in relation to the data that it holds about its own employees in the EU and also its own processing of personal data that is not under the instructions of its controller clients.
As we begin to develop appropriate accountability policies and procedures, so the list grows. It is not unusual now to see that list includes:
• External facing website privacy notice
• Internal privacy notice and data protection policy
• Cookie statement
• Information security policy
• Bring your own device policy
• Email and internet policy
• Social media policy
• Monitoring in the workplace policy
• CCTV policy
• Incident response and data breach policy
• Privacy by default/design policy
• Legitimate interests assessment policy
• Data protection impact assessment policy
• Subject access requests policy
• Data Subject rights handbook – righ