The Little Book of GDPR: New Data Rights for a New Digital Era

London, 9th August 2017 - A new book, The Little Book of GDPR, about the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides information, not only about data rights, but also how IT teams and businesses can get their organisation onto the path to compliance. The easy-to-read 70-page book, which can be purchased on Amazon for £10.99, is far more than a bluffer’s guide to the subject but is written in such way as to demystify what can be an often frustratingly complex subject. Click here http://ow.ly/tZhP30ehbQh to link to the book on Amazon

In a week of recent headline grabbing news about the introduction of new global data rights (BBC News Lead Story 7th August) the book is a timely and user-friendly manual on what can be a complex, sometimes legalistic subject.

Written by Fifth Step CEO Darren Wray, the book looks at the implications of the GDPR, which comes into enforcement on May 25th, 2018, and its potential impact, explaining the regulation with examples. The Little Book of GDPR is not just relevant to organisations based in Europe, because as its author explains the GDPR is also relevant to businesses that are based outside of Europe, which may also be compelled to comply.

Darren Wray says in the book’s introduction: “In many respects, the updating of this regulation is long overdue, very much because of the changes in technology and particularly the Internet since the late 1990s. Imagine that since the DPD was passed in to law, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have come into being. Search engines have become infinitely more powerful and well known.

“No book about GDPR would be complete without mentioning the fines. I’m going to get these out of the way; they are big and scary numbers, but this book is about setting you on the right path to help you avoid the fines, and not about building fear. The fines are very deliberately big numbers. The Data Protection Act 1998, the UK implementation of the DPD has a maximum penalty of £500,000. Not a small fine, but it is dwarfed by the fines that can be applied under GDPR, being the greater of €20m/£17m or 4% of annual global turnover. This means that big companies will not long be able to say: “the cost of our compliance is more than the fine”.

“As an example – A social media platform has an annual revenue of €1bn, should they have a significant personal data breach and found to not have complied with the GDPR, they could find themselves being fined as much the higher of €20m or 4% of annual global revenue which in this case could mean they could be fined €40m (4% of €1bn).”

Much as this book will help readers understand GDPR and some of the steps that they need to take, it is not intended and can never be a replacement for a professional assessment of organisations’ GDPR compliance, circumstances and needs. Wray who is a prolific blogger on GDPR, data rights, cyber resilience, project management and IT leadership, recommends that readers seek professional help where required.

Darren’s writings, podcasts and YouTube content can be found on www.fifthstep.com.

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