The general data protection regulation, or GDPR, is one of the most significant developments in data privacy regulation across the European Union (EU) nations. But while the law has EU origins, any company that is marketing goods or services to EU residents need to comply with the new regulation regardless of their location. Consequently, GDPR is having an immense impact on global data protection requirements.
GDPR imposes a uniform and consistent data security law on all EU nations. This eliminates the need for each member state to write their data protection law. GDPR, thus, provides more consistent protection of consumer and personal data of EU residents. Although it protects only EU citizens, the law affects all businesses and organizations targeting the European market.
As the law is fairly new, some are still not ready to become GDPR-compliant. As of June 2019, only 28% of companies are able to achieve compliance—a far cry from the 78% of organizations that were hoping to be compliant by 2018 (Help Net Security, 2019). Nonetheless, organizations around the world are gradually applying changes and restructuring to comply with the new law.
