Few companies meet the requirements of GDPR

New research shows that very few companies meet the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Since EU rules came into force three months ago, not all businesses have yet complied with the legislation.

The survey was conducted by data company Talend SA, which states that 98 percent of the 103 organizations it contacted had adjusted their data privacy policies to the new rules. However, 70 per cent did not meet the requirement to transfer data within 30 days if they are requested.

Difficulty complying with rules

It is striking that 35% of European companies, i.e. those directly covered by GDPR, complied with the rules, whereas outside the EU it was 50%. In the survey, 70% of companies were located in the European Union, 19% in North America and 11% in Asia.

Retails scored the worst in the survey. Only a quarter responded within the required thirty-day time limit. The best-performing segment of the financial sector did not perform much better, with a score of fifty percent. Incidentally, the study took place between 1 June and 3 September, which is not entirely clear as to how much progress has been made in the weeks following the introduction of GDPR.

Privacy Policy and GDPR

Talend states that the study was conducted to find out whether companies have adjusted their privacy policies to GDPR. In this way, customers should be able to easily retrieve their data. But that turned out to be relatively problematic. Thirty percent of the companies that responded within the deadline needed another thirty days to do so. And seven companies, out of 103 questioned, replied within 24 hours.

This category included streaming services, mobile banks and other technology companies. The somewhat older companies that have been running for decades had the greatest difficulty in responding quickly. It is a somewhat worrying result, because the picture that has emerged in recent weeks is that companies find it very difficult to comply with GDPR.