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We had a unique opportunity in talking with data privacy attorney Sheila FitzPatrick. She lives and breathes data security and is recognized expert on EU and other international data protection laws. FitzPatrick has direct experience in representing companies in front of EU data protection authorities (DPAs). She also sits on various governmental data privacy advisory boards.
During this first part of the interview with her, we focused on the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which she says is the biggest overhaul in EU security and privacy rules in twenty years.
One important point FitzPatrick makes is that the GDPR is not only more restrictive than the existing Data Protection Directive—breach notification, impact assessment rules—but also has far broader coverage.
Cloud computing companies no matter where they are located will be under the GDPR if they are asked to process personal data of EU citizens by their corporate customers. The same goes for companies (or controllers in GDPR-speak) outside the EU who directly collect personal data – think of any US-based e-commerce or social networking company on the web.
Keep all this in mind as you listen to our in-depth discussion with this data privacy and security law professional.
There's a couple things that stick out when it comes GDPR, is when you look at the roles of the data controller verses the data processor, in the past many of the data processors, especially when you talk about third party outsourcing companies and any particular cloud providers, have pushed sole liability for data compliance down to their customers. Basically, saying you decide what you're going to put in our environment, you have responsibility for the privacy and security aspects. We basically accept minimal responsibility. Usually, it's around physical security.
The GDPR now is going to put very comprehensive and very well-defined regulations and obligations in place for data processors as well. Saying that they can no longer flow responsibility for privacy compliance down to their customers. And if they're going to be... even if they... often times, cloud providers will say, "We will comply with the laws in countries where we have our processing centers." And that's not sufficient under the new laws. Because if they have a data processing center say in in UK, but they're processing the data of a German citizen or a Canadian citizen or someone from Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, they're now going to have to comply with the laws in those countries as well. They can't just push it down to their customers.
The other part of GDPR that is quite different and it's one of the first times it's really going to be put into place is that it doesn't just apply to companies that have operations within the EU. It is basically any company regardless of where they're located and regardless of whether or not they have a presence in the EU, if they have access to the personal data of any EU citizen they will have to comply with the regulations under the GDPR. And that's a significant change. And then the third one being the sanction. And the sanction can be 20,000,000 euro or 4% of your global annual revenue, whichever is higher. That's a substantial change as well.
So the first thing to do is to make sure you have that group in place that goes into action immediately. Secondly, you need to determine what data has potentially been breached, even if it hasn't. Because under GDPR, it's not... previously it's been if there's definitely been a breach that can harm an individual. The definition is if it's likely to affect an individual. That's totally different than if the individual could be harmed. So you need to determine okay, what data has been breached, and does it impact an individual?
So, as opposed to if company-related information was breached, there's a different process you go through. Individual employee or customer data has been breached, the individual, is it likely to affect them? So that's pretty much anything. That's a very broad definition. If someone gets a hold of their email address, yes, that could affect them. Someone could email them who is not authorized to email them.
So, you have to launch into that investigation right away and then classify the data that has been any intrusion into the data, what that data is classified as.
Is it personal data?
Is it personal sensitive data?
And then rank it based on is it likely to affect an individual?
Is it likely to impact an individual? Is it likely to harm an individual?
So there could be three levels.
Based on that, what kind of notification? So if it's likely to affect or impact an individual, you would have to let them know. If it's likely to harm an individual, you absolutely have to let them know and the data protection authorities know.
And then all of a sudden people's names show up on these mailing lists. And they're starting to get this unsolicited marketing. And they can't determine whether or not... how did they get that? Was it based on a breach or is it based on trolling the Internet and gathering information and a broker selling that information? That's the other thing. Brokers are going to be impacted by the new GDPR, because in order to sell their lists they have to have explicit consent of the individual to include their name on a list that they're going to sell to companies.
The difference now is that any personal data that you collect on an individual, whether it's an employee, whether it's a customer, whether it's a supplier, you have to obtain unambiguous and freely given explicit consent. Now this is any kind of data, and that includes sensitive data. Now the one difference with the new law is that there are just a few categories which are truly defined as sensitive data. That's not what we think of sensitive data. We think of like birth date. Maybe gender. That information is certainly considered sensitive under... that's personal data under EU law and everywhere else in the world, so it has to be treated to a high degree of privacy. But the categories that are political/religious affiliation, medical history, criminal convictions, social issues and trade union membership: that's a subset. It's considered highly sensitive information in Europe. To collect and transfer that information is going to now require explicit approval not only from the individual but from the DPA. Separate from the registrations you have done.
Want to join us live? Save a seat here: https://www.varonis.com/state-of-cybercrime
More from Varonis ⬇️
Visit our website: https://www.varonis.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/varonis
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/varonis
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/varonislife/
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We had a unique opportunity in talking with data privacy attorney Sheila FitzPatrick. She lives and breathes data security and is recognized expert on EU and other international data protection laws. FitzPatrick has direct experience in representing companies in front of EU data protection authorities (DPAs). She also sits on various governmental data privacy advisory boards.
During this first part of the interview with her, we focused on the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which she says is the biggest overhaul in EU security and privacy rules in twenty years.
One important point FitzPatrick makes is that the GDPR is not only more restrictive than the existing Data Protection Directive—breach notification, impact assessment rules—but also has far broader coverage.
Cloud computing companies no matter where they are located will be under the GDPR if they are asked to process personal data of EU citizens by their corporate customers. The same goes for companies (or controllers in GDPR-speak) outside the EU who directly collect personal data – think of any US-based e-commerce or social networking company on the web.
Keep all this in mind as you listen to our in-depth discussion with this data privacy and security law professional.
There's a couple things that stick out when it comes GDPR, is when you look at the roles of the data controller verses the data processor, in the past many of the data processors, especially when you talk about third party outsourcing companies and any particular cloud providers, have pushed sole liability for data compliance down to their customers. Basically, saying you decide what you're going to put in our environment, you have responsibility for the privacy and security aspects. We basically accept minimal responsibility. Usually, it's around physical security.
The GDPR now is going to put very comprehensive and very well-defined regulations and obligations in place for data processors as well. Saying that they can no longer flow responsibility for privacy compliance down to their customers. And if they're going to be... even if they... often times, cloud providers will say, "We will comply with the laws in countries where we have our processing centers." And that's not sufficient under the new laws. Because if they have a data processing center say in in UK, but they're processing the data of a German citizen or a Canadian citizen or someone from Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, they're now going to have to comply with the laws in those countries as well. They can't just push it down to their customers.
The other part of GDPR that is quite different and it's one of the first times it's really going to be put into place is that it doesn't just apply to companies that have operations within the EU. It is basically any company regardless of where they're located and regardless of whether or not they have a presence in the EU, if they have access to the personal data of any EU citizen they will have to comply with the regulations under the GDPR. And that's a significant change. And then the third one being the sanction. And the sanction can be 20,000,000 euro or 4% of your global annual revenue, whichever is higher. That's a substantial change as well.
So the first thing to do is to make sure you have that group in place that goes into action immediately. Secondly, you need to determine what data has potentially been breached, even if it hasn't. Because under GDPR, it's not... previously it's been if there's definitely been a breach that can harm an individual. The definition is if it's likely to affect an individual. That's totally different than if the individual could be harmed. So you need to determine okay, what data has been breached, and does it impact an individual?
So, as opposed to if company-related information was breached, there's a different process you go through. Individual employee or customer data has been breached, the individual, is it likely to affect them? So that's pretty much anything. That's a very broad definition. If someone gets a hold of their email address, yes, that could affect them. Someone could email them who is not authorized to email them.
So, you have to launch into that investigation right away and then classify the data that has been any intrusion into the data, what that data is classified as.
Is it personal data?
Is it personal sensitive data?
And then rank it based on is it likely to affect an individual?
Is it likely to impact an individual? Is it likely to harm an individual?
So there could be three levels.
Based on that, what kind of notification? So if it's likely to affect or impact an individual, you would have to let them know. If it's likely to harm an individual, you absolutely have to let them know and the data protection authorities know.
And then all of a sudden people's names show up on these mailing lists. And they're starting to get this unsolicited marketing. And they can't determine whether or not... how did they get that? Was it based on a breach or is it based on trolling the Internet and gathering information and a broker selling that information? That's the other thing. Brokers are going to be impacted by the new GDPR, because in order to sell their lists they have to have explicit consent of the individual to include their name on a list that they're going to sell to companies.
The difference now is that any personal data that you collect on an individual, whether it's an employee, whether it's a customer, whether it's a supplier, you have to obtain unambiguous and freely given explicit consent. Now this is any kind of data, and that includes sensitive data. Now the one difference with the new law is that there are just a few categories which are truly defined as sensitive data. That's not what we think of sensitive data. We think of like birth date. Maybe gender. That information is certainly considered sensitive under... that's personal data under EU law and everywhere else in the world, so it has to be treated to a high degree of privacy. But the categories that are political/religious affiliation, medical history, criminal convictions, social issues and trade union membership: that's a subset. It's considered highly sensitive information in Europe. To collect and transfer that information is going to now require explicit approval not only from the individual but from the DPA. Separate from the registrations you have done.
Want to join us live? Save a seat here: https://www.varonis.com/state-of-cybercrime
More from Varonis ⬇️
Visit our website: https://www.varonis.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/varonis
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/varonis
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/varonislife/
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