Privacy and confidentiality are fundamental concepts to the work of victim support organisations and are intuitive cornerstones to a confidential and high-quality service. GDPR standards are a welcome reinforcement of this foundation.
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, better known as GDPR came into force on 25th May 2018. It strengthens and modernises the 1998 Data Protection Act, which had become outdated through the development of technology over the next 20 years.
But implementation of the GDPR is not without its challenges!
Many victim support organisations operate in fear of incurring potential fines for GDPR non-compliance at the expense of victims’ wellbeing. A clear operating framework – based on legal certainty must be developed and sanctions for non-compliance must take into account data protection and victim support objectives, recognising the vulnerable financial situation of most organisations.
Learn more about the concerns of victim support workers and our proposed solutions to the application of EU data protection rules in victim support services: VSE Data Protection paper
