GDPR Compliance for Irish SMEs: Protecting Employee Data and Your Business with PurpleTree

As an Irish employer, GDPR (and Ireland’s Data Protection Act 2018) places significant responsibilities on your business regarding how you collect, process, store, and share your employees’ personal data. This isn’t just an IT issue; it’s a fundamental HR and legal compliance requirement. Failing to comply can result in:

• Substantial fines from the Data Protection Commission (DPC).
• Reputational damage and loss of trust from employees and customers.
• Potential individual legal actions from employees for data breaches.
• Increased scrutiny from regulatory bodies during other inspections (e.g., WRC).

PurpleTree, with experts like Mary, helps your Irish SME navigate these obligations confidently.

PurpleTree offers practical, hands-on support to ensure your Irish SME’s HR practices are fully GDPR compliant. Our senior advisors, Mary, Seán, and David, understand the specific challenges SMEs face and provide tailored solutions, not just generic checklists. Our GDPR support includes:

• GDPR HR Audits: Reviewing your current employee data handling processes, identifying gaps, and providing an action plan for your Irish business.
• Policy Development: Drafting essential GDPR-compliant documents like Employee Privacy Notices, Data Protection Policies, and Data Breach Response Plans tailored for your Irish SME.
• Consent Management Advice: Guidance on obtaining and managing lawful employee consent for processing personal data in Ireland.
• Data Mapping & Record of Processing Activities (ROPA): Helping your Irish SME document what employee data you hold, why, where it’s stored, and who has access – a key GDPR requirement.
• Training for Irish Staff & Managers: Delivering practical training on GDPR principles and their responsibilities for handling employee data correctly.

GDPR is built on several core data protection principles that your Irish business must uphold when processing employee data. PurpleTree ensures your practices align with these, as advised by experts like David:

• Lawfulness, Fairness, and Transparency: Processing Irish employee data lawfully, fairly, and in a transparent manner.
• Purpose Limitation: Collecting Irish employee data only for specified, explicit, and legitimate HR purposes.
• Data Minimisation: Ensuring you only collect and retain the Irish employee data that is adequate, relevant, and necessary.
• Accuracy: Keeping Irish employee personal data accurate and up-to-date.
• Storage Limitation: Retaining Irish employee data for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it was processed.
• Integrity and Confidentiality (Security): Ensuring appropriate security measures are in place to protect Irish employee data.
• Accountability: Demonstrating your Irish business’s compliance with GDPR.

GDPR grants Irish employees several important rights regarding their personal data. Your Irish SME must have procedures in place to facilitate these rights. PurpleTree’s advisor, Seán, can explain these in detail:

• The right of access (Subject Access Requests – SARs) to their personal data held by your Irish business.
• The right to rectification of inaccurate personal data.
• The right to erasure (the “right to be forgotten”) in certain circumstances.
• The right to restrict processing of their personal data.
• The right to data portability.
• The right to object to certain types of data processing.
• Rights in relation to automated decision-making and profiling.

Irish employees have the right to request access to their personal data (a SAR). Your Irish SME must respond within one month (extendable in complex cases). This involves identifying, retrieving, and providing all relevant data. PurpleTree, with guidance from experts like Mary, helps your Irish SME establish a compliant SAR procedure, ensuring you respond correctly and lawfully, which can be complex and time-consuming without proper systems (HR Duo helps securely store and retrieve data for SARs).

• Developing a clear SAR procedure for your Irish SME.
• Training relevant staff on how to handle Irish SARs.
• Understanding what data to include/exclude in an Irish SAR response.
• Meeting GDPR’s strict SAR response timelines.

Even with robust security, data breaches can happen. If a breach involving Irish employee data occurs and poses a risk to individuals, your SME must notify the Data Protection Commission (DPC) within 72 hours, and in some cases, the affected individuals. PurpleTree and David can help your Irish business develop a Data Breach Response Plan, outlining steps to contain, assess, notify, and review any breach, minimising harm and ensuring compliance.

• Creating an Irish Data Breach Response Plan.
• Training staff on identifying and reporting potential breaches in Ireland.
• Understanding DPC notification requirements for Irish businesses.

Modern HR software like HR Duo, which PurpleTree recommends and implements for Irish SMEs, is designed with GDPR compliance at its core. It provides a secure, centralised platform for storing all Irish employee personal data, contracts, and policy acknowledgements. Features such as permission-based access controls, data encryption, and audit trails help your Irish business demonstrate compliance and manage data responsibly. Mary and Seán can show you how HR Duo simplifies GDPR for your SME.

• Secure, cloud-based storage for Irish employee data in HR Duo.
• Role-based access controls to protect sensitive HR information in Ireland.
• Audit trails in HR Duo for data processing accountability.
• Facilitating GDPR-compliant data retention and deletion for Irish records.

GDPR compliance for your Irish SME is not a one-time project; it requires ongoing attention as your business changes and data protection laws evolve. PurpleTree offers retained HR support to provide continuous guidance on GDPR matters. We can help your Irish business conduct periodic data protection reviews, update your Employee Privacy Notices as needed, and provide ongoing training to ensure new and existing Irish staff understand their data protection responsibilities. This ensures your Irish business remains compliant in the long term, with advice from experts like David.

• Periodic reviews of your Irish SME’s GDPR compliance.
• Updates to Irish Employee Privacy Notices and Data Protection Policies.
• Refresher GDPR training for Irish staff and managers.
• Ongoing advice from PurpleTree’s Irish GDPR experts (Mary, Seán, David).