I’m sure you’ve received a flood of emails over the past few weeks and months, all referencing updated Privacy Policies and email subscriptions. You probably already know why: Today, May 25th, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) takes effect across the European Union. This set of laws give consumers across the EU more control over their personal data, and because of the way the laws are written, they have sweeping effects across the globe. It’s not quite this simple, but basically any company in the world that collects personal information from citizens of the EU needs to at least consider how they handle and process that data.

We’re no different, so here’s how GDPR affects us and our customers:

How We Help Customers With GDPR

We help our customers prevent and detect data breaches and actively monitor the security of their networks, allowing them to respond quickly to issues and providing them the support they need. Utilizing threat protection and network visibility technologies like Network Cloaking, Active Threat Intelligence, and vulnerability scanning externally and internally – in addition to simple, easy to understand reporting – Sentinel provides protection and support for all types of compliance requirements, including GDPR.

How GDPR Affects Us

• We have, like everyone else, updated our privacy policy to reflect the new GDPR requirements for transparency, ease of understanding, and control of personal data, including the collection of personal information and the use of cookies on our web properties.
• We’ve analyzed our internal network security infrastructure, policies, and procedures to improve our ability to detect a breach, and ensure any personal information – any data, for that matter – is protected in transit and at rest.
• We’ve reviewed how we collect personal information online, and how we use the information we collect to communicate via email subscription lists, to ensure those procedures are in line with the new GDPR standards.
• We’ve taken a look at each of the 3rd-party vendors we use for support, communication, sales, and marketing, to make sure they in turn are also GDPR-ready.

Companies around the world have had to adapt (and are still adapting) to GDPR, and it’s a complicated regulation – quite frankly, no one’s sure if they’ve gotten it right. That said, we are happy to follow the EU’s lead on this one, as it should ultimately result in better privacy and security for digital citizens everywhere.