Enforcing Data Protection: A Model for Risk-Based Supervision Using Responsive Regulatory Tools, a post by Dvara Research, summarizes Effective Enforcement of a Data Protection Regime, a deeply thought and researched paper by Beni Chugh (@BeniChugh), Malavika Raghavan (@teninthemorning), Nishanth Kumar (@beamboybeamboy) and Sansiddha Pani (@julupani). While it addresses proximal concerns in India, it provides useful guidance for data regulators everywhere.
An excerpt:
Any data protection regulator faces certain unique challenges. The ubiquitous collection and use of personal data by service providers in the modern economy creates a vast space for a regulator to oversee. Contraventions of a data protection regime may not immediately manifest and when they do, may not have a clear monetary or quantifiable harm. The enforcement perimeter is market-wide, so a future data protection authority will necessarily interface with other sectoral institutions. In light of these challenges, we present a model for enforcement of a data protection regime based on risk-based supervision and the use of a range of responsive enforcement tools.
This forward-looking approach considers the potential for regulators to employ a range of softer tools before a breach to prevent it and after a breach to mitigate the effects. Depending on the seriousness of contraventions, the regulator can escalate up to harder enforcement actions. The departure from the focus on post-data breach sanctions (that currently dominate data protection regimes worldwide) is an attempt to consider how the regulatory community might act in coordination with entities processing data to minimise contraventions of the regime.
I hope European regulators are looking at this. Because, as I said in a headline to a post last month, without enforcement, the GDPR is a fail.
Bonus link from the IAPP (International Association of Privacy Professionals): When will we start seeing GDPR enforcement actions? We guess Feb. 22, 2019.
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