Go easy in enforcing new data privacy laws, GRTU urges authorities

Authorities should give out warnings rather than impose fines in the first year of implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation, the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises (GRTU) said. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect on Friday. It increases privacy for individuals and aims to ensure that personal data gathered is done lawfully and with the individuals’ full consent. The new regulation also gives authorities more power to act on those who do not comply. In this regard, local authorities are now able to impose harsher fines with up to four per cent of annual turnover or €20 million, the GRTU said. The chamber insisted that businesses needed to be given more time to fully implement the regulation, adding that the legislation was “cumbersome”. READ: High-profile US news sites blocked for EU users as GDPR comes into force “It fails to make a distinction between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and larger organisations,” the GRTU said. The regulation was also very subjective and, in many ways, open to interpretation. “Although the GRTU believes that its members are doing their best to comply with this regulation, one...