73% of Canadian and US firms haven’t prepared for GDPR

A new report from DocsCorp named “The current state of GDPR Readiness” has revealed that only 27% of Canadian and US firms have begun to prepare for the new data handling requirements that will be implemented under the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Despite GDPR being a set of European regulations, the rules will apply to any firm globally that either employs European citizens, or conducts business with a European business or within Europe.

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Those who do not comply to the regulations could be subject to a penalty fine of either 4% of global revenue or €20mn – whichever is the larger.

With the new regulations set to be implemented in May 2018, the lack of firms aware of the implications of GDPR is rather worrying. The report, “The current state of GDPR Readiness”, found that 54% of respondents were unaware of the approaching date of the GDPR compliance deadline.

Further, when asked to cite their top concern around GDPR, 55% of firms said it was leaking personal data – something that GDPR aims to prevent.