Boost Belgian SMEs' awareness of and compliance with the GDPR, with special focus on three compliance themes

ended

The very core rationale behind this project is to increase Belgian Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises’ (SMEs) awareness and knowledge of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and to provide them with practical and straightforward support to facilitate their compliance with the GDPR. We have chosen to focus on three specific GDPR compliance themes because we consider them as topical issues that are a matter of considerable concern for businesses in general, including SMEs: 1. The principle of transparency; 2. The Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA); 3. The concepts of “controller” and “processor”. In order to achieve its overall objectives, the project plans the following activities: - To engage with sectorial organisations which represent Belgian SMEs from all the sectors of the economy; - To launch public surveys for SMEs to assess their awareness and knowledge of the GDPR; - To organise workshops with the sectorial organisations to discuss about problems encountered by SMEs; - To reply, in general terms, via a FAQs brochure, to the main categories of SMEs’ queries received via the public surveys; - To develop new tools to facilitate SMEs’ compliance with the GDPR; - To organise a webinar for all types of SMEs, targeting all categories of their staff who need to gain GDPR knowledge; - To develop two new informative tools to raise SMEs’ awareness on the GDPR, namely videos and newsletters. The main results of the project include: an enhanced level of SMEs’ awareness and knowledge of the complex GDPR, and a strengthened SMEs’ compliance with the GDPR. The expected outcome of the project is an improvement of the implementation of the GDPR amongst SMEs in Belgium. Furthermore, the expected outcome goes beyond the mere legal compliance with the GDPR as the project envisages to make SMEs realise that the GDPR brings along new business opportunities in the data driven digital economy and to empower them to lead by example in this field.