CEO Monthly Oct

CEO MONTHLY / OCTOBER 2017 23 Brussels vs Britain: GDPR Preparation Gap Exists Between IT Professionals Across Europe g financial penalties and reputational damage. “The lack of awareness and action towards the GDPR by the IT profession across pockets of Europe is worrying. Many businesses are putting themselves and their clients at risk by not making vital preparations and changes now to the way personal information is harvested and secured. Many of the businesses affected by the legislation will have operations across Europe so the preparation gap is particularly alarming as such businesses should be sharing information about compliance across their business and have a clear point of responsibility within their company. “The deadline is the same for every company no matter their size, industry or location, so action needs to be taken now to get data handling practices up to scratch before the wrath of the regulators makes the impact of GDPR a bitter pill to swallow, rather than a good thing for the data health of an organisation,” commented Adam Maskatiya, General Manager, UK & Ireland. The research questioned over 2,000 IT decision makers in organisations with more than 50 employees. It was conducted in 11 European countries; the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.