Any information or data recorded and stored by a business digitally needs to be protected. From financial information to payment and personal details, it is imperative that this data is protected for the safety and maintenance of your business. These can be key pieces of information commonly stored by enterprises such as consumer details, employee records, transactions, strategy, and transactions among many. They need to be prevented from being misused by fraudulent third parties. 

What is GDPR?

The General Data Protection Regulation is a pan-European data protection law that is significant in bringing about a 21st-century approach to data protection. It enhances the rights of individuals to control how their personal data is collected and processed and obligates organizations to be more accountable for data protection. This is relevant as SAP has to directly comply with this. 

There are 6 principles of data protection outlined by the GDPR:

1. Lawfulness, fairness, and transparency

Organization’s need to make sure their data collection practices abide by the law and that they aren’t hiding anything from data subjects.

2. Purpose limitation

Organizations should only collect personal data for a specific purpose after clearly stating what that purpose is, and only collect data till the purpose is met.

3. Data minimization

Organization’s must only process the personal data that they need to achieve its processing purposes. 

4. Accuracy

The accuracy of personal data is integral to data protection and necessary steps should be taken to rectify inaccurate and incomplete information. 

5. Storage limitation

Further organization’s need to delete personal data when it’s no longer necessary.

6. Integrity and confidentiality

Any and all personal data must be processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorized processing, accidental loss, destruction, or damage. 

Data Protection By SAP

Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing, better known as SAP is dedicated to ensuring complete data safety of all its users. Data Protection comes with various legal requirements and privacy concerns. It is a lot of complicated stuff and involves compliance with general data privacy regulations along with industry-specific legislation in different countries. SAP offers specific features and functions to support and aid compliance with regard to respective legal necessities of data protection. These security features and data protection-relevant functions include simplified blocking, deletion, or depersonalization of personal data, etc.

How Does That Work?

SAP signs data processing agreements with each of their cloud service providers which mirrors the terms of SAP’s customer-facing data protection agreement and includes the standard contractual clauses. This way SAP implements and maintains organizational, technical, and legal measures to effectively protect the personal data of its clients.

SAP has a complex Data Protection Management System which consists of company-wide data protection guidelines, function-specific work instructions, and a global network of data privacy representatives.

By regularly training all its employees, SAP verifies a high level of data protection awareness with regular audits in more than 100 locations all over the world, annually. It has been accredited by the British Standards Institution (BSI) of London to have a high standard for personal information management systems. 

SAP provides a support portal in addition to the SAP Trust Center which extends public offering through access to additional documentation exclusively available to SAP customers and partners. Audit details and results are accessible by the consumer through the annual customer audit report.

As a business owner or manager, one has the duty to make sure the data is secure and accurate. It is imperative that data is collected consensually, processed correctly, and stored safely.  By following proper data protection measures, organizations can prevent cybercrimes such as frauds, identity thefts, and/or hacking.

This is significant as a breach in your data security can be very costly. Along with legal implications, the business can lose its precious credibility. 

SAP ensures that it can efficiently comply with all Data protection legalities and specifications all over the world. In this extensively digital world, proactive data protection is the key to a healthy business.