GDPR – Nico @ Bullhorn discusses current position and aims

It’s important that as a platform, at the centre of everything, we address the matter very proactively, and can act as a very strong support function for our customers”

Steve: What do you understand of GDPR so far?

Nico: My understanding is that it’s a new law that’s been passed this year, it’ll come into action next year in May, and will essentially enhance the current data protection rules that are in place in this country. By the sound of it, it will be closer to what other countries like France and Germany already have in place.

The first question that we – or any business dealing with data in one way, shape or form – have been asking ourselves is: how does that impact us? Then secondly, what’s our talk track? And thirdly, how can we proactively collaborate with our customers to make sure that the whole supply chain will be compliant?

We’ve done our due diligence internally. The positioning is there and the question now is: how do we engage with our customers? It’s going to be a big talk track at Bullhorn Live this year. It’s important that as a platform, at the centre of everything, we address the matter very proactively, and can act as a very strong support function for our customers. If they have doubts or questions, we can help them.

The second phase of this is: does our product need to evolve or adapt to the rules? That’s a bit early to say.

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What we know already is we need to provide an audit trail for our customers, making sure that they are compliant. Whether they decide do it manually, or that we provide the automation to make things easier and improve efficiency, is a non-question… We’re probably going to go for the latter, but we need to make sure that we know where the responsibility lies and how things progress. I don’t know if that necessarily aligns with your view of this, what do you think?

Steve: I think you have to look at it as an opportunity… as a service and a software provider to recruiters, as well as in-house. I think what’s worrying everyone is that the final details haven’t been published yet. The concern is that those details won’t get released until very near to the May, just before it goes live, and that doesn’t give the suppliers enough time to get themselves in order. The other thing, of course, that’s worrying people is the huge fines that could be imposed. I forget what they’re talking about, 4% or 6% of revenue?

Nico: It’s large, and it’s per instance as well, so it can accelerate quite a bit from what I understand. Like, if you have 10 people that are not compliant and you multiply that by the amount of offences… it’s a big deterrent.

Realistically, it’s probably a way to get people to actually take care of it and make sure that they’re compliant. But there are also questions lately about whether or not that will come into action in the end, or we’ll just reroute back to the Data Protection Act. With all Brexit’s conversation, do we think that that law came into play because of Europe or was it in spite of Europe and driven by the UK legislator?

Nico Roux (@TheRealMonsieur) is the EMEA Partner Manager for Bullhorn.