GDPR compliance: effective data retention and automated deletion strategies
If you're running a business that deals with customer data, you've heard about GDPR. One area that businesses often overlook is data retention—how long you keep customer data. Understanding the key elements can save you from hefty fines and build trust with your customers. Let's break down the essentials in an approachable way, with sources included at the end.
Why Data Retention Matters under GDPR
GDPR isn't just about keeping data safe; it's also about how long you hold onto it. Under GDPR, you can't just keep personal data forever. You need to have a solid reason for retaining it and a clear timeline for how long that data will stay in your systems. The principle here is simple enough: keep data for no longer than necessary.
Holding onto data longer than needed not only increases the risk of breaches but also violates GDPR along with ISO 270001 and SOC 2. Plus, if a customer asks you to delete their data and you can't comply because your retention policies are a mess, you're in trouble.
Common GDPR Data Retention Challenges for Businesses
- Changing regulations – since GDPR was enacted in Europe many places including the UK, Australia, Canada, and even various states in the USA have enacted similar privacy legislation. Expect this pace of change to continue. It's a lot of detail to keep up with.
- Data subject requests – as people have become more aware of their privacy rights, requests for data subject access and the “right to erasure” have gone up significantly. These can place a heavy burden on businesses without clear retention policies and proactive management.
- Over-retention – our past approach to data was often to keep and protect as much as possible, as long as possible. But this is no longer possible while remaining compliant with GDPR and other frameworks like ISO 27001 and SOC 2. And the breaches are costly.
- Growing volume and access requests – all this without clear retention management can quickly leave organizations struggling with both data volume and responses to data subjects, among other discovery risks.
Essential GDPR Data Retention Strategies
So how to respond to these? It shouldn't be overly scary if you apply some basic principles to your business and it's data.
- Data Minimization: The GDPR emphasizes data minimization. This means you should only collect the data you absolutely need. Ask yourself, “Do I really need this information?” If the answer is no, don't collect it in the first place. This also makes your retention policies easier to manage because you're dealing with less data from the start.
- Purpose Limitation: Every piece of data you collect should have a clear purpose. Once that purpose is fulfilled, it's time to let the data go. For example, if you're collecting customer data to complete a transaction, you don't need to hold onto that information indefinitely after the transaction is complete.
- Retention Schedules: One of the best ways to manage data retention is to establish clear retention schedules. This involves setting specific timelines for how long different types of data will be kept. For instance, you might decide to keep customer data for five years after an interaction. Make sure these timelines are aligned with your business needs and legal obligations.
- Regular Audits: GDPR isn't a “set it and forget it” regulation. You should regularly audit your data retention practices to ensure they comply with the law. This means going through your data, checking retention schedules, and deleting data that no longer needs to be retained.
- Automated Deletion: Let's face it—manually managing data lifecycle is a hassle and prone to human error. Implementing automated systems that flag data for archiving and subsequent deletion once it reaches the end of its retention period helps with compliance. But it also frees up employees for other business tasks. If you're using Atlassian Confluence and Jira, consider using Opus Guard's Content Retention Manager in concert with Atlassian's native Content Manager and Automation for archiving rules. Combined this will implement archiving and review periods, followed by retention polices, automated deletion, and compliant audit trails to handle information lifecycle in that part of your business.
- Data Protection Officer: Not everything can be deleted automatically. In particular a Data Protection Officer can facilitate documentation and training so your business can better respond to data subject access requests, and requests to be forgotten.
- Document Everything: One of the golden rules of GDPR is documentation. Keep detailed records of your data retention policies, the reasons behind them, and any decisions you make regarding data deletion. This way, if regulators come knocking, you've got everything well-documented and ready to show.
- Educate Your Team: Finally, make sure everyone in your organization understands the importance of data retention policies. Everyone from IT to Marketing should know what data can be retained, for how long, and when it needs to be deleted.
The Benefits of Automated Data Deletion
GDPR compliance might seem daunting, but by focusing on data retention, you can help to protect your business and your customers' data. Remember, the goal is to keep only what you need, for as long as you need it, and then securely dispose of it. By setting clear retention policies, automating deletion under GDPR where possible, and keeping everything well-documented, you'll be well on your way to staying on the right side of the law.
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Our sources for this article:
- European Commission - GDPR Overview: Check out the "Principles" section, particularly the "Storage Limitation" principle [Article 5(1)(e)] for insights into data retention requirements here.
- EDPB - Guidelines: To understand how data retention interacts with the right to erasure, refer to the EDPB's guidelines, particularly section 3 on data retention and deletion here.
- ICO - Guide to Data Protection (UK): The "Storage Limitation" section of the ICO's guide provides guidance on data retention schedules and complying with UK GDPR here. The “Right to Erasure” section deals with data subject requests to be forgotten here.