GDPR & Paper Records... Your Solution

If you are reading this blog, you are probably worrying about the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation which will be in force this month. But before you start to panic, firstly you need to recognise if GDPR will affect your organisation.

Do any of your paper records hold personal information relating to an individual in the EU?

If the answer is yes, then GDPR probably applies to you. It does not matter whether your business is located in the EU or not, if you process or control personal data belonging to residents in the EU, GDPR will apply.

Does your business have more than 250 employees?

The ICO expects all businesses to comply with GDPR, although exceptions are made for those organisations which have fewer than 250 employees. However, if processing personal information is likely result in risk to the rights/freedoms of data subjects, the processing is not occasional, or if the processing includes special categories of data, GDPR will apply no matter the size of the organisation.

Your Solution

Firstly, your organisation must appoint an employee dedicated to ensuring compliance is met. In fact, if your organisation is a public authority or carries out certain types of processing activities, you must appoint a data protection officer (DPO). The selected employee is responsible for reviewing all paper archives, whilst asking themselves the following questions:

• Can you access information you may need in a timely and cost-effective manner?
• How long would it take you to find this information?
• Do you know exactly where this information is?
• How many copies of the document exist?
• Most importantly, can you adhere to GDPR if a customer asks you for the right to erasure and you cannot find the information?

If you are unaware of exactly where your records are, how many copies exist or cannot access these documents in a timely and cost-effective manner, then you need to re-consider your records management system.

Storetec offer a range of tailored document management services including:

Document Scanning

Many businesses today are deciding to switch to a digital archive using document scanning as a solution. Online access to recordsenables you to take control, allowing for easy search with immediate access to the documents you need. Storetec can apply OCR to all digitised text meaning documents are searchable by any relevant reference.

Cataloguing & Storage

If you would prefer to keep documents in their original paper format, there is the option to use Storetec’s secure document storage service. Your business-critical records will be stored away in our state of the art facility, available to physically or digitally retrieve if required for an audit. If you do not have an inventory, we can also provide custom cataloguing services, so you know the exact location of each document.

Cloud-Based Document Management

Whether you are looking to integrate existing digital images or want to tailor the project to include scanning services, we can host your documents on our secure document management system, FreeDocs. The cloud- based system boasts a number of benefits including: delegate user access, password and data encryptions, access to complete audit trails ensuring legal admissibility and instant access 24 hours a day, anywhere in the world on any device.

Storetec will launching a brand new GDPR 1.0 add on to FreeDocs very soon! Specially designed with data protection in mind, GDPR 1.0 will allow users to specify specialist indexing preferences such as: review dates, destruction dates, the source and whether the document contains personal information or not.

Whether you simply want some advice on GDPR or are seeking a reputable document scanning provider, contact us today.