50% of Privacy Professionals Report Increased Budgets to Prepare for GDPR in 2018

AvePoint and the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL) to reveal key findings from the second annual GDPR Readiness Benchmark Report during the IAPP Europe Data Protection Congress 2017.

Brussels — November 6, 2017 — AvePoint, a leading provider of data protection solutions, announced today that it will reveal key findings from this year’s European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Readiness Benchmark Report, conducted in collaboration with the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL) at Hunton & Williams, during the IAPP Europe Data Protection Congress 2017 in Brussels, November 8-9, 2017. CIPL is a global privacy and security think tank within the law firm Hunton & Williams, LLP. AvePoint and CIPL will share their expertise around GDPR-related trends, product solutions, and how organisations are ramping up for the GDPR which goes into effect in May 2018.

Learn About GDPR Readiness for 2018
Experts from AvePoint and CIPL will discuss the results of their joint 2017 GDPR global readiness survey, compare 2017 and 2016 benchmark results, and note improvements and remaining challenges during the session, “Benchmarking Global GDPR Readiness”, which will be held on Wednesday, November 8 from 4:15-5:15 p.m. CET. They will also be joined by speakers from Microsoft to offer insight into how industries are on the path to meeting GDPR requirements, and how organisations are handling internal implementation and change management. Dana Simberkoff, AvePoint Chief Risk, Privacy and Information Security Officer, and Bojana Bellamy, President, CIPL are among the session leadership.

With over half of all responding organisations reporting increased GDPR budgets and one-third committing additional headcount in the run up to May 2018, significant progress has been made in preparing for the GDPR. The results provide insight into how companies are utilising their resources and what progress has been made, along with areas that require further work and clarity.

“The conversation around GDPR is ongoing and will definitely be a mainstay beyond the May 2018 date, after GDPR is live,” Bellamy explained. “The entire conference focuses on the many layers of GDPR, from how to simplify compliance for your organization, to how to answer the question about GDPR readiness. It’s such a hot topic and a wealth of information will be shared to help organisations map their approach, or perhaps rethink it.”

“We want to ease trepidation or address confusion about the next steps to become GDPR-compliant, first by diving into the trends that stem from the Global Benchmark Assessment,” Simberkoff stated. “Knowing the obstacles that other organisations are facing and how they are marching on towards the end goal is an excellent learning strategy. In the end, you will be able to identify the resources and tools available to help you confidently begin an assessment for your organization, or what next steps are best.”

AvePoint Products for GDPR Compliance
AvePoint Privacy Impact Assessment System (APIA): Developed by AvePoint and distributed exclusively by IAPP, APIA fully integrates an advanced GDPR Detailed Assessment developed with assistance from Microsoft. The GDPR Detailed Assessment helps organisations and their service providers gauge GDPR compliance progress and identifies where they are on the journey to GDPR readiness. APIA helps organisations understand and automate the process of evaluating, assessing, and reporting on the privacy implications of their enterprise IT systems.

Compliance Guardian: New to Compliance Guardian is a GDPR risk calculator and support of Slack and Dropbox, which adds to an extensive list of platforms that integrate with the solution, including File Shares, Oracle and SQL databases, Web sites, SharePoint on-premises and in the cloud, Exchange Online, OneDrive for Business, and Yammer in Office 365. Compliance Guardian assesses risk for both structured and unstructured data while protecting data throughout its entire lifecycle, and automates permissions and governance.

RiskIntel: RiskIntel automates the ability for organisations to catalogue inventory, and map data flows, assess risk, conduct data protection and security risk assessments, and recommend guidance for technical controls and remediation required to protect PII and sensitive data. RiskIntel identifies the appropriate controls to protect personally identifiable information (PII) and other sensitive information, and meets key requirements for global privacy legislation, including the GDPR, as well as ISO 27001 and 27002. It also has a data mapping feature that monitors data movement between countries, people and systems.

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