GDPR Is Almost Here: Is Your Data Ready?

(Note: This post updates our previous post on GDPR) The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect on May 25, 2018, and it imposes strict guidelines for global businesses around the storage and management of personal data. The GDPR website states that the comprehensive mandate is the “most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years.” It impacts any organization that has a presence in the European Union or that offers goods or services there.

Ultimately, the GDPR will benefit businesses because it sets consistent standard across all countries in the EU for how citizens’ personal information is accessed, used and managed. It is also a single set of rules regarding the digital rights of EU citizens—which is particularly valuable in today’s data-driven environment. 

GDPR: A Quick Overview

Important GDPR terminology includes:

• Data controller – an organization that collects data from EU residents (e.g. a Wasabi customer)
• Data processor – an organization that processes data on behalf of a data controller (e.g. a cloud provider such as Wasabi)
• Data subject – a person living in the European Union
• Personal data – any personally identifiable information relating to a data subject (e.g. name, identification number, location data, online identity)

GDPR imposes strict data privacy and security rules for both data controllers and data processors. The mandate requires appropriate safeguards to protect the privacy of personal data and defines consent rules for disclosing personal data. GDPR also grants individuals the right to examine, amend, correct and delete personal records.

Key provisions in the regulation require the “pseudonymization” and encryption of personal data, give individuals tight control over their personal data, and grant them the right to transfer personal data from one electronic processing system to another. Provisions also require data controllers to implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to safeguard personal data and to notify authorities and affected individuals of personal data leakage.

How Wasabi Can Help You Comply with GDPR

Data security is a top priority for us. Businesses use Wasabi hot storage for a variety of needs, including:

• Low-cost primary storage for on-premises or cloud-based workloads
• Economical secondary storage for backup, disaster recovery in the cloud, or data migration initiatives
• Affordable and reliable archival storage for long-term data retention

Regardless of how organizations are deploying Wasabi, they can rest assured that their data will remain protected according to GDPR guidelines. Like other businesses, we’ve been aware of GDPR since it was adopted in 2016 and have been preparing for its official enforcement since then. If your business is subject to GDPR guidelines and you use Wasabi to store your data, you’re allset, as Wasabi is GDPR-compliant

So how does Wasabi protect data? We take a “defense-in-depth” approach to data security, employing multiple layers of security for ultimate protection. The Wasabi cloud storage service is built and managed according to security best practices and standards, and engineered to ensure the privacy and integrity of personal data in accordance with GDPR guidelines.

While stricter mandates about data security can be a challenge for some businesses, regulations like the GDPR only reinforce the need for ever-greater ways to protect personal information. Wasabi is committed to staying abreast of these changes and we are continually developing new ways to ensure the security of the data our clients store. And, this fall, we’ll be expanding our footprint, with new data centers in the EU.