Cloud services can help businesses fulfil GDPR compliance

The GDPR sets a strong standard for privacy and data protection by empowering people to control their personal information.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), comes in as the most significant change to the privacy law in two decades in Europe. it seeks to ensure that personal data is protected against misuse and theft and to give individuals in the European Union (EU) control over how data relating to them is being used. Any entity that is established in the EU or that processes the personal data of individuals living in the EU in order to offer them goods or services or to monitor their behaviour - whether as customers, employees, or business partners - will be affected.

The EU is one of UAE's largest trading partners. Hence, this makes it even more important for companies from the emirates to consider GDPR compliance. With roughly 160 GDPR requirements ranging from how you collect, store and use personal information, to mandating a 72-hour notification for personal data breaches - the road to achieve this set of compliance is not going to be easy. However, technology especially the cloud can help accelerate the path to compliance for most organisations.

A cloud provider that has security, privacy, compliance and transparency at the core of its products and solutions, can uniquely provide an expedited journey to GDPR compliance.

GDPR compliance should not be seen as an obstacle but rather an opportunity for organisations in the UAE and the region to skill up their systems and processes, by achieving compliance standards and improved security, eventually empowering them to achieve more and remain competitive on the global market.

GDPR is an important step forward for privacy rights in Europe and around the world, and we've been enthusiastic supporters of GDPR since it was first proposed in 2012. It sets a strong standard for privacy and data protection by empowering people to control their personal information. We believe privacy is a fundamental human right. As people live more of their lives online and depend more on technology to operate their businesses, engage with friends and family, pursue opportunities, and manage their health and finances, the protection of this right is becoming more important than ever.

Privacy is also the foundation for trust. We know that people will only use technology that they trust. Ultimately, trust is created when people are confident that their personal data is safe and they have a clear understanding of how and why it is used. This means companies like ours have a huge responsibility to safeguard the privacy of the personal data we collect and the data we manage for our commercial customers.

We are committed to making sure that our products and services comply with GDPR. That's why we've had more than 1,600 engineers across the company working on GDPR projects. Since its enactment in 2016, we've made significant investments to redesign our tools, systems and processes to meet the requirements of GDPR. Today, GDPR compliance is deeply ingrained in the culture at Microsoft and embedded in the processes and practices that are at the heart of how we build and deliver products and services.

We feel good about what we achieved so far. But we know that May 25 wasn't the end of our work. Instead, it is the beginning of the next phase of our focus on GDPR. The fact is that this regulatory framework is as new to privacy regulators as it is to us. The ongoing interpretation of the detailed aspects of this regulation will determine the steps that we all will need to take to maintain compliance. As our customers use our tools and experience other features we'll also listen to their feedback and suggestions for improvements. Because regulatory interpretations change with experience and changing circumstances over time, we will constantly evaluate our products, services and data uses as understanding of GDPR evolves.

The writer is head of corporate, external and legal affairs at Microsoft Gulf. Views expressed are her own and do not reflect the newspaper's policy.