JOIN USIndian IT firms scramble for EU's GDPR compliance deadline
With not many Indian firms prepared for the fast-approaching European Union's Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), aimed at data protection and privacy, deadline, there could be a last-minute rush for compliance.
Ernst and Young (EY)'s Global Forensic Data Analysis Survey, 2018, released here on Wednesday revealed that over 60% of Indian executives who participated in their study were not even aware of the GDPR, leave alone its compliance.
The deadline for compliance is May 25 and organisations will face heavy fines for non-compliance.
Arpinder Singh, head of India and emerging markets, Fraud Investigation and Dispute services, at Ernst and young (EY) said at the release of the survey that it is a serious wake-up call.
"India being a hub of major IT companies with so many multinationals in the IT sector, the number is too low. We need to increase the awareness if we have to be relevant in the global IT sector," he said.
However, he said that India is doing better compared to Japan and Singapore in making their firms GDPR compliant.
"We are actually getting lot of requests; in the last month when this deadline has suddenly come everybody started calling us on policies procedures etc. Companies are now taking it seriously. We are working with 55 large IT companies. Three months ago there were not even 10 companies interested in GDPR," Singh said.
He said that it takes at least six months to make them up to the EU standards. As per the EU standards any firm that detects a breach of data should immediately inform the regulator about it within 72 hours otherwise the firm will be in violation.
Andrew Gordon, global leader of the EY's fraud investigation and disputes dervices, said that 80% of the EU firms are GDPR compliant.
EY, which has around 746 employees in different parts of the country, is planning to expand its tech-lab in Hyderabad, which has a staff of only 140. EY will be recruiting over 100 specialists for both Hyderabad and Delhi units.