New tool helps streamline data protection processes and mitigate risks

Stuttgart, 11 January 2022 – Data protection is becoming increasingly critical for companies in all industries: By 2023, companies that earn and maintain digital trust with customers will see 30% more digital commerce profits than their competitors*, while on the other hand the number of data breaches and the cost associated with them is rising year after year. So-called “mega breaches” cause average costs of USD 401 million**.

GFT and Proteus are partnering to make data protection processes significantly more efficient while mitigating risks. The partners combine Proteus’ highly innovative data protection management platform with GFT’s deep tech expertise to deliver transformational data protection. The Proteus NextGen Data Privacy software platform includes a modular contract building kit to help data protection officers create new privacy agreements from the bottom up. It even automatically builds agreements, facilitates their completion and correctness by using pre-defined building blocks, automates transfer impact assessments and migration of vendor agreements to new SCCs***.

GFT will bring their sector knowledge, digital transformation expertise and passion for technology and innovation to the party to benefit existing and new clients alike. Together, the partners aim to help their clients

• establish and maintain oversight of personal data in the organisation and sharing of this data with other organisations
• manage regulatory, contractual, technical and organisational requirements in the treatment of personal data on the basis of a risk oriented approach
• build and maintain a privacy management framework to help minimise the risk of a data breach
• manage continuous change in the regulatory space

Commented Ernst-Oliver Wilhelm, GFT Group Chief Privacy Officer: “New regulatory decisions like Schrems II and new SCCs for third country data transfers have caused a lot of disruption in the field of data protection. With our new partnership, we are offering a way to significantly reduce complexity and mitigate the risks in these and other crucial areas of managing personal data. We use this tool internally and we are very happy to offer it to our clients.”

John Clelland, CEO Proteus-Cyber, adds, “The combination of GFT’s world class expertise and Proteus’ innovative software will deliver to more organisations a transformational data privacy programme in which they can have confidence.”

Further details on the services capability of GFT can be found at www.gft.com whilst information about the Proteus NextGen Data Privacy Management software is at www.proteuscyber.com.

* https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3989495/the-state-of-privacy-and-personal-dataprotection-2020-2
** https://newsroom.ibm.com/2021-07-28-IBM-Report-Cost-of-a-Data-Breach-Hits-Record-HighDuring-Pandemic
*** Contractual clauses are providing appropriate data protection safeguards for international data transfers. This includes the so-called “standard contractual clauses” (SCCs) which have been modernised mid of 2021. The prior SCCs can continue to be used for existing data transfers until December 2022, giving organizations less than 12 months from now to move their legacy data transfers over to the new SCCs. For more details: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/dataprotection/international-dimension-data-protection/standard-contractual-clauses-scc_en