Citrix: Enthusiasm about GDPR still far to be found

Dutch employees are not yet enthusiastic about working with the GDPR privacy regulations introduced in May 2018, according to Citrix in a study. In some cases, they even find the privacy regulations harmful and restrictive for their work.

Despite the fact that the GDPR has been active for more than six months now, the mood surrounding the European regulations for the privacy of personal data does not seem to have calmed down completely yet. In the survey by the virtualisation specialist, a large majority of the respondents, 60 percent, indicated that they are now familiar with the regulations. However, 20 per cent say they haven’t done so yet. Apparently, there are still a lot of souls to be won.

Just over a quarter of those surveyed indicated that they are not yet dealing with the implemented privacy legislation on a daily basis. Approximately 20.5 per cent spend 15 minutes a day working on it and 5 per cent spend more than half an hour a day working on the extra work required by the GDPR.

Discontinuation of GDPR is exaggerated

Many employees consider all the fuss surrounding the GDPR to be exaggerated. Approximately 85 percent of the respondents said that they believe that the existing IT security measures of their companies or organisations are sufficient to guarantee the privacy-sensitivity of the personal data entrusted to them.

When asked, a majority of the respondents indicated that they believe in the effectiveness of the GDPR. In any case, 42.25% of the participants in the study largely agree with the statement that GDPR helps to ensure that companies and governments handle personal data in a secure manner. Only 9 percent are completely convinced of this. In addition, 19.75 percent said they were (very) sceptical about this. About 29 percent have no opinion.

Restrictive to the work

However, the researchers at Citrix have found that many of the employees questioned feel that the GDPR is hindering them in their work. A large group, 30.8%, think that the European privacy law restricts the activities of their companies and is also harmful to business activities. Among 18 to 25-year-olds, this is even 70 percent. Of the other respondents, 17.5 per cent think that the GDPR is not at all restrictive for business activities. Just over half, 51.7 percent, have no opinion at all.

The experts consider this reasonably large objection to the GDPR to be a rather worrying development. In their view, this could lead to a reduction in safety as a result of the increased workload imposed by the regulations. They find that experience shows that people automatically look for ways to do their work faster and more easily. In the case of IT security, which the GDPR has a bit to do with, it means that they are going to bypass security measures and use other solutions that work faster. With all the consequences that entails.