February 23, 2015,  EU General Data Protection Regulation, Thought Leadership  No comments

City law firm Allen & Overy has just produced this Guide for HR Directors: “Data with Destiny” as part of its Big Think Programme.

What organisations need to start doing today

First, make sure they are ready to comply with a stricter and systematically different regime – and many are not yet anywhere near that position.

Second, and more importantly, they must not lose sight of the bigger prize that is on offer to them if they put data to use in innovative ways, in particular the huge potential of HR Big Data Analytics…

The firm sees Data Protection Officers (DPOs) as essential in leveraging this opportunity.

Companies should start recruiting DPOs NOW

DPOs must perform...

February 21, 2015,  Brand marketing, Innovation  No comments

Seasoned music and film executive producer Helen Gammons runs the highly acclaimed MBA programme for the music and creative industries at Henley Business School.

Now in its third year, its graduates are living proof that the sector is one that’s in a constant state of re-invention and change – perhaps more than any other.

“The industry is completely different to what it used to be and this has opened the door to a much wider range of opportunities for disruptive brands,” explains Helen Gammons who can lay claim to having attracted some of the best in the industry to the MBA programme including Faber Music, Disney, Sony Music, Peermusic and ISM to name a few.

The secto...

February 21, 2015,  EU General Data Protection Regulation  No comments

There’s currently a ‘wait and see’ with the forthcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and what’s certain from all the conversations we’re having with companies is that they need clear guidance in how to prepare for the inevitable when it arrives.

However, that doesn’t mean that companies should sit on their hands and wait, according to Martin Hickley, a leading data protection and governance expert.

“Imagine you’re a company and the data controller. You know that once the GDPR is approved, you’ll have a two-year grace period in order to ensure that all data protection and security procedures comply with the principles of the EU Regulation...

February 14, 2015,  Council of Ministers, data protection, EU General Data Protection Regulation, European Commission, European Parliament, News  No comments

The Presidency of the EU Council is in the hands of the Latvians until June and urged on by European Commission they’ve highlighted data protection reform across Europe as a key priority. Data protection reform may not grab national news headlines here in the UK but the consequences of what will become law across all 28 EU Member States will have far reaching implications for the Government put in charge of running the country after the British General Election is decided in May 2015.

As discussed in blogs on this and many other websites, the spate of data breaches and the security implications for millions of European citizens continues to grow bigger on a daily basis.

And...

January 31, 2015,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

Photograph by David Graeme-Baker

Earlier this week, the Worshipful Company of Marketors, the livery company representing the interests of marketing professionals in the City and the Financial Services Forum held a joint seminar on the subject of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) at Cass Business School, London. This was the first time that both organisations had collaborated on an issue that impacts the financial services sector more than any other sector.

Those taking part (left to right) were Martin Hickley, data governance, protection and privacy expert; Hazel Grant, partner and head of privacy and information law at Fieldfisher; Ardi Kolah, director of Go...

January 14, 2015,  News  No comments

Over the next 24 hours all eyes will be on US President Barak Obama as he plays host to the British PM David Cameron at the White House.

And whilst Anglo-American relations are warm and friendly, Obama’s body language will reveal his pan-European tendencies when it comes to security and data protection.

This is in sharp contrast to the reticence of David Cameron to an intra-country solution as advocated by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncke who’s determined to fast-track the EU General Data Protection Regulation this year.

David Cameron and Barak Obama have a working dinner tomorrow night and will meet in the Oval Office on Friday...

January 10, 2015,  News, Social marketing practice  No comments

Impatience with the progress of the forthcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is starting to grow within the European Union.

A recent joint declaration adopted by representatives of the German, Austrian, Belgian, Croatian, French, Greek, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Luxembourg, Dutch, Portuguese, Czech, Romanian, UK, Slovakian and Swedish  parliaments called on European legislators to adopt the GDPR “by 2015”.

German Green MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht, vice chairman of the civil liberties committee at the European Parliament warned this week that failure to agree on the new security and data protection rules was “bad for democracy” as this left European citizens exposed...

January 3, 2015,  Consumer behaviour, Legal update  No comments

From Friday 2 January 2015, payday lenders are now required to be fairer and in many cases cheaper and have had lost the ability to inflict misery on their customers that struggle to pay.

As a result of the new rules introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) that regulates the market, it’s estimated that more than 100 payday loan firms have been driven out of business – 30 have closed down and a further 70 have simply stopped offering these products, while 450 high-street payday loan shops have also closed according to media reports.

“The crackdown on the payday lending market comes not a moment too soon...

January 2, 2015,  Legal update, News  No comments

There are growing concerns among data protection experts that current safeguards in place for the collection and storage of fingerprints is deeply flawed and are likely to be in breach of the forthcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation, expected to be approved in 2015.

At the convention of Chaos Computer Club, a computer hacker known as “Starbug” claims to have cloned the thumbprint of German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen simply by using a standard smartphone and other pictures taken of her when she spoke at a conference recently.

Fingerprint identification is a commonplace security measure...

December 30, 2014,  Essential Law for Marketers, News  No comments

Current law

Under EU Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), organisations and companies are prohibited from transmitting or instigating the transmission of unsolicited electronic communications to consumers for the purposes of direct marketing unless the person receiving those communications has provided prior consent for the messages to be sent.

Companies also mustn’t disguise or conceal their identity in the messages or use invalid addresses where recipients of the messages would send responses to ask for the messages to stop being sent.

Marketers can send direct marketing via electronic mail to consumers if they have “obtained the contact details of th...