GDPR is the biggest change to data protection law since 1998. It has changed the way organisations collect, store and process data, and as a result, how they operate. You need to understand it, the implications involved and how building a strong backup strategy can help with GDPR compliance.

Have you got GDPR compliance sorted? Have you implemented accurate measures and sourced a reliable backup and disaster recovery provider? If you answered ‘no’, read on to find out how a good backup strategy could take away those GDPR worries.

What does GDPR mean for you?

There has been a lot of miscommunication surrounding GDPR, especially when it comes to the UK’s relationship with the EU. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which enforces data protection, stated the new law will still apply in the UK.

GDPR implications on data backup

Last year we addressed the 6 GDPR implications on your backup and disaster recovery strategy. Let’s revisit these again almost a year on, as these are still key in ensuring ongoing compliance.

#1 Backup and disaster recovery is essential under GDPR

Organisations are held responsible for their ability to recover personal data quickly. In terms of compliance it is necessary to have backup and disaster recovery strategies in place to tackle this, but also to actively test the effectiveness of these solutions. How often are you testing your current procedures? It is vital that your backup strategy is continually tested and updated to ensure compliance.

#2 Is your third-party provider GDPR compliant?

If you outsource your backup and disaster recovery solution you need to make sure that your provider is GDPR compliant. The handling, managing, and backing up of data, falls under the ‘data processor’, or in this case your backup provider, therefore your provider must follow the same data handling and protection rules as you do. If you, or your provider, change any processes at any time these must be communicated and your backup strategy and GDPR policies updated to reflect how data is actively handled within your business.

#3 How do you currently tackle your business data breaches?

What procedures do you have in place to detect and report on data breaches? Does the level of protection used work well? Or do your procedures need to be strengthened?

Even if your breach procedures haven’t been tested in a real-life data breach situation – you should be regularly testing these to ensure they are working for that worst-case scenario. Another good practice is to continually look for ways to tighten procedures as a means of staying compliant and keeping your precious business data safe. You can increase business confidence in cybersecurity capabilities by becoming Cyber Security Essentials accredited, find out why we did it here, and how your business can benefit.

#4 Data compliance is no longer just an IT or Legal concern

The Information Commissioner outlined a list of best practices which included creating new job roles or whole new data compliance teams. Was this implemented in your organisation? If yes, how are your teams measured? How are they ensuring your business is compliant? Are they testing the effectiveness of your backup strategy and policies? Are they ensuring you have working procedures in place to cover every aspect of GDPR?

Having answers to these questions and understanding the role of your appointed data teams and your overall backup strategy is essential in GDPR compliance. Everyone in your business should be GDPR aware.

#5 Regular data backups are essential

GDPR requires data to be available to the subject at any time, is your data backed up to reflect live data? Regular backing up of data is key to your backup strategy, even if your backups are automated.

If your data backup is scheduled, who checks if it worked correctly? Ensuring regular data backups and that these backups are working is essential to keeping your data safe and secure. You should also be able to search backups at a granular level making it easy to find the required information on behalf of data subjects.

Making sure your data is updated regularly to reflect personal data changes and live business data means you reduce data errors and possible data breaches – it’s really not worth the ICO investigation and potential fines. Regular backups are always essential within your business.

#6 Testing of your backup and disaster recovery solution

Have you ever checked if your DR and backup provider regularly tests the effectiveness of their solutions? Are you regularly testing your backup and DR solution? This is a key element in your backup strategy, your business should be regularly testing strategies and compliance measures, whether that be weekly, monthly or quarterly, and making changes accordingly. Making sure this is a mandatory task is important not only in terms of GDPR compliance but also to reflect changes within your business.

GDPR is complicated, we get it, but it is important to understand these implications on your backup strategy and why building a robust strategy is essential in your GDPR compliance.

So why choose us for GDPR compliance?

We have given you a lot of questions to answer and address in terms of GDPR compliance and improvements that could be made for ongoing compliance, as well as how important it is to have a strong backup system in place. Organisations must have compliance measures and a backup and disaster recovery solution that works for your business backup needs.

Backup Systems are a provider you can trust, being 100% GDPR compliant, ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Security accredited flowing the best practices in cybersecurity.

We have over ten years of experience in developing and managing disaster recovery solutions, focusing exclusively on backup software, cloud data backup, one drive backup, disaster recovery and data archiving. The future of data is all about managing that data, not the storage on which it sits – so why not let Backup Systems manage your backup needs for you, find out more in this guide to our Complete Managed Service.