Businesses are risking GDPR penalties

According to a survey of 1,002 UK workers in full or part-time employment, carried out by Probrand.co.uk, the majority (57%) of businesses in the retail industry failed to wipe the data from IT equipment they disposed of in the two months following GDPR.

This news is perhaps less surprising given the research also found that 72% of all UK retail businesses do not have an official process or protocol for disposing of obsolete IT equipment.

What’s more, 70% of retail workers admit they wouldn’t even know who to approach within their company in order to correctly dispose of old or unusable equipment.

Worryingly, according to the data, retail businesses – many of which will have customer addresses and contact information on their systems – are one of the worst offending industries in respect of safe and secure IT disposal.

The only industries more guilty of not clearing the memory of IT equipment before disposal in the months following GDPR were transportation (72%), sales and marketing (62%), manufacturing (59%) and utilities (58%).

Matt Royle, Marketing Director at Probrand.co.uk commented: “Given the amount of publicity around GDPR it is arguably impossible to be unaware or misunderstand the basics of what is required for compliance. So, it is startling to discover just how many businesses are failing to both implement and follow some of the simplest data protection practices.”

“This is especially startling to see from businesses within the retail sector, where sensitive customer information including address details and card numbers are handled all the time.”

“The fines involved in a GDPR breach can potentially run into the millions – and what appear to be less tangible impactors, like reputational damage, customer trust and loyalty, will ultimately become financially significant.”

“Given these findings, it is clear that more needs to be done to ensure that all businesses have a disposal procedure in place to avoid inadvertently leaking sensitive data.”

The top 10 industries which are most guilty of not clearing the memory of IT equipment before it is disposed of:

1. Transportation – 72%
2. Sales and marketing – 62%
3. Manufacturing – 59%
4. Utilities – 58%
5. Retail – 57% 
6. Education – 54%
7. Leisure and travel – 49%
8. Healthcare and hospitality – 45%
9. Trades / administration – 44%
10. Information and communication – 39%