GDPR Compliance: Why Resistance Is Futile and How to Protect Your Company

On May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) officially entered force, leaving many organizations scrambling to meet its stringent requirements. Even with four years of advance notice, IT leaders are still grappling with how to integrate robust data protection measures into their resilience plans. Syncsort’s 2018 State of Resilience Report shows that security and privacy remain top priorities for IT departments, especially as cloud adoption accelerates data collection, storage, and analytics.

The Long Arm of the Law

GDPR’s architects stated that “the processing of personal data should be designed to serve mankind.” The regulation replaces Directive 95/46/EC, standardizing privacy rules across the EU and setting a higher bar for both European and non‑European companies doing business with EU customers.

Bottom line: every organization, regardless of location, must reassess its data handling practices. Do you know what personal data you hold, who it belongs to, how it’s used or shared, and whether it’s adequately protected? The survey of nearly 6,000 global respondents found that most firms are still wrestling with these questions.

Putting the Individual Back in Charge

GDPR grants individuals the right to know which organizations hold their data, to access and correct it, and most critically, to request its deletion— the right to be forgotten. The regulation’s consent framework forces companies to obtain explicit approval before collecting or processing personal data, turning data into both an asset and a liability.

Effective compliance begins with a clear inventory of personal data, a unified identity view across disparate systems, and rigorous consent management. Tools that detect, de‑duplicate, and maintain data integrity are essential, as is an audit trail that records every access to personal information— a challenge amplified in big data and real‑time streaming environments.

What Is Personal Data and How Can It Be Used Safely?

The digital age’s personalized data practices fuel innovation but also heighten privacy concerns, prompting GDPR’s stringent safeguards. Article 4(1) defines Personally Identifiable Information (PII) as any data that can identify, describe, or uniquely reference an individual—including names, ages, social security numbers, IP addresses, device IDs, and even hashed or encrypted fields if they serve to identify someone.

GDPR encourages the removal of direct identifiers wherever possible, a technique known as pseudonymization, to mitigate the impact of security breaches. Building compliant systems from the ground up—rather than retrofitting legacy solutions—is more effective and cost‑efficient. Anonymization, masking, and obfuscation tools should be integral to both new and existing data architectures, especially when data is shared across multiple databases for real‑time analytics.

The Future Arrives Faster Than You Think

Time often catches IT teams off‑guard. Non‑compliance can trigger fines of up to €20 million or 4% of global turnover, and the reputational damage can be irreversible. With the May deadline passed, companies that have not achieved full compliance face imminent enforcement actions.

David Hodgson, Chief Product Officer, Syncsort