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The issue of data subject rights stands out as a key concern for organizations all over the world, especially after GDPR and other upcoming laws and regulations that follow this precedent.
The increasing importance of GDPR compliance paired with the growing complexity of data ecosystems have created a number of difficulties for organizations.
GDPR data subject rights such as the right to be forgotten have taken center stage in today’s societies as a tool for individuals to gain control over their personal data.
In this context, companies must take measures not only to guarantee GDPR compliance but also to adhere to the best practices of data privacy that allow them to cultivate their clients’ trust.
However, GDPR compliance has proven to be a complex, multi-dimensional challenge for many organizations, as it involves wide-ranging measures, including cybersecurity measures aimed at GDPR compliance.
In this article, we analyze the challenges that arise from responding to data subject rights and how implementing the right tools can make a difference to guarantee compliance without compromising business intelligence.
GDPR data subject rights are the eight fundamental rights that emerge from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the legal framework that regulates data privacy in the European Union.
The central role of data subject rights is to provide citizens with autonomy and control over their personal data and its processing. In this specific context, personal data is understood as any piece of information that can (directly or indirectly) identify an individual, and includes data such as names, email addresses, location data, tracking cookies or biometric data, among other data categories.
The GDPR data subject rights are the following:
Regarding the scope of data subject rights, these apply to any organization processing the personal data of individuals in the EU/EEA, regardless of where the organization is based.
The right to access is described under Article 15 in the GDPR, and it is the origin of Subject Access Requests (SAR) or Data Subject Access Requests (DSAR).
This right allows individuals to request a copy of the personal data that an organization holds about them, along with details on how it is being processed. More specifically, this article grants data subjects the right to obtain the following details about their personal data:
After receiving a SAR, companies have a month to answer to said request (with possible extensions depending on the specific conditions).
Article 16 describes the right to rectification. It involves the possibility to request personal data to be corrected in case it is inaccurate or incomplete, and for this rectification to be done promptly.
Under Article 17, this right grants individuals the possibility to request the elimination of their personal data under certain circumstances, which include:
The right to be forgotten stands out as one of the key provisions within the GDPR, being at the heart of the measures that aim at giving individuals control over their personal data.
When considering the right to be forgotten, it’s important to understand it is not an absolute right, but it can be nuanced by other legislation and rights. As such, rights such as the freedom of expression and potential legal obligations to retain data can have an impact on the exercise of this right.
When it comes to organizations, the right to be forgotten is also a crucial aspect of GDPR compliance, as it poses a number of unique challenges.
Primarily, it emerges as a key right that forces organizations to have total control over their data retention practices: they must ensure they only keep personal data for as long as necessary. When a customer, supplier, or employee ceases to be one, organizations are obliged to block and delete their personal data from all business management applications.
This means that data should not only be handled upon request by the data subject. On the contrary, organizations must implement ongoing processes to proactively identify former customers, suppliers, and employees, in order to block and delete their personal data in accordance with established retention periods.
This list of data subject rights directly addresses organizations that process personal data. In a broad sense, the law establishes three main obligations for these:
As seen below, these general principles may translate in a series of challenges for GDPR compliance, particularly in complex data ecosystems where manual intervention is not possible.
For most large companies where manual data handling is not feasible, managing SARs requires establishing clear policies and procedures that streamline requests, so that they are easily submittable and promptly addressed and settled.
The lack of such procedures can complicate proper handling of SARs, beginning with identifying and locating data. Data might be stored in different locations, present an unstructured format that makes it harder to extract, or be part of legacy systems that hinder data search.
SARs also require careful redaction to ensure sensitive or non-relevant data isn’t included as part of the request. Additionally, the process might become more complex when third-party data is involved, or in cases where the company must determine whether a request is excessive.
A lack of adequate data mapping and inventory capacities can thus cascade into problems to respond within the legal time constraints (typically, one month), or not being able to manage high volumes of requests. This can lead to fines or legal action, as well as reputational damage.
From the point of view of internal processes, inadequate management of SARs leads to other undesirable consequences, as the process can be costly and resource-intensive when not addressed correctly.
Data subject rights directly point towards the tension between the legal obligations under GDPR and the actual practical obstacles that organizations might face in implementing these rights.
When not properly managed and designed, complex data ecosystems can lead to multiple issues that directly affect the capacities of organizations to respond to GDPR data subject rights.
More specifically, the Second report on the application of the GDPR found that companies—especially small and medium-sized enterprises—cite “burdensome requirements, lack of support from DPAs, and lengthy approval processes” as factors reportedly hampering uptake. Additionally, “some stakeholders report challenges arising from limited digital literacy or poor understanding of rights.”
Beyond this report, a look at current challenges for compliance reveals the obstacles are many. Firstly, the current complexity of data ecosystems means data fragmentation across multiple systems stands out today as a key barrier, as it prevents organizations from being able to identify, retrieve and modify data consistently.
The use of older IT systems that require manual intervention, and the lack of consistent data management policies are also key obstacles.
Additionally, achieving a balance between strong security measures and exercising data subject rights in a timely manner can also be cited as a potential issue. This includes the need to establish effective methods to confirm the requestor's identity securely and quickly.
All these barriers intensify in scenarios where companies are faced with large volumes of requests.
Effectively enforcing rights under the GDPR and comparable regulations is nearly unfeasible through manual processes. The different departments involved—such as Legal, Security, Operations, and Product—frequently face challenges in locating personal data distributed across multiple systems and databases. They also struggle to take proactive steps to block or erase this data in line with the specified retention schedules.
In these contexts, automation is not an option—it's a necessity.
Automation platforms are designed to simplify and streamline organizations’ procedures around data subject rights by addressing the challenges described above.
More specifically, among other capacities, automation tools allow for:
However, companies must ensure they pick the right GDPR tool, as not all of them are designed to cover data subject rights in their entirety. Some tools focus on management but lack the ability to actually execute those rights. For instance, some tools can be designed to merely detect user requests, but can’t generate access request reports.
On the contrary, certain platforms are designed to promote a more holistic approach to GDPR, mobilizing further benefits beyond mere compliance and thus closing the gap to achieve data governance.
Built for complex applications and ecosystems where manual execution isn’t viable, icaria DP is the only platform that orchestrates data blocking and suppression, automatically and everywhere.
As such, icaria Data Privacy includes the following functionalities designed to help organizations overcome the challenges of GDPR and other regulations compliance:
- Sensitive data identification. Detects and classifies personal data across all applications, regardless of technology, ensuring full visibility and compliance.
- Advanced data subject identification. icaria DP automatically locates individuals who meet criteria to cease being customers, employees, or suppliers and constantly updates these records.
- Profile-based data management. Defines custom data subject profiles (former customers, employees, suppliers) and applies tailored blocking or deletion policies according to specific compliance requirements.
- Data blocking & reversibility. Securely blocks personal data through pseudonymization while maintaining business insights. Custom reversibility plans per profile allow secure data retrieval when needed, aligning with business and compliance needs.
- Automated data deletion. Once the legal retention periods have been met, it fully enforces the right to be forgotten. It does so by executing the removal of personal data across all applications and backends—without requiring any manual intervention.
Even though personal data is deleted, business information and KPIs remain available.
- Data preservation. Personal data is stored in a secure, independent repository that complies with strict protection standards. It guarantees data blocking, reversibility, and deletion—even if underlying technologies are decommissioned.
With icaria Data Privacy, organizations access a tool for seamless GDPR compliance that requires zero manual intervention. All these procedures are offered as part of a technology-agnostic platform, operating regardless of the organization’s underlying technology.
As such, it offers a comprehensive approach to ensuring data subject rights efficiently and safely.
As seen above, the right to be forgotten poses specific challenges for organizations.
In this regard, icaria DP stands out as a robust and forward-thinking solution that goes beyond what most privacy platforms offer. While many tools focus primarily on data governance, icaria DP distinguishes itself by also enabling the actual enforcement of personal data blocking and deletion.
As such, the platform emerges as a key ally to help organizations comply with the right to be forgotten and its nuances. It goes beyond data discovery or the processing of SARs, promoting a granular control over how deletion is executed across multiple applications.
As such, icaria DP does not just manage deletion requests: it executes them by securely blocking, anonymizing, or deleting data, applying tailored deletion plans.
This means controlled, irreversible deletion can be achieved without impacting operational records.
Meanwhile, and while personal data is erased, business intelligence can remain intact, so that organizations maintain their reporting and analytics capacities without compromising their GDPR compliance.
Data collection drives the world forward today, and it’s only accelerating.
In a context where data is growing to represent some of the organizations’ most valuable resources, GDPR compliance is evolving too. And data subject rights continue to represent key concerns for both citizens and companies.
In the face of ever-evolving technologies, new legislation continues emerging to complement the GDPR. A continued transformation of rules and requirements that implies companies must be able to adapt to evolving regulations. Building from an already robust infrastructure when it comes to managing GDPR data subject rights represents a necessary first step to tackle such a scenario.
As both citizens and public authorities’ concerns around privacy intensify, enforcement and accountability are likely to become stricter and put a higher strain on companies’ capacities for data governance and their response to data subject rights.
This is particularly true when considering the enhanced focus on data privacy that the advancement of AI applications is already introducing.
In face of these evolving challenges, organizations must focus on implementing robust compliance strategies. This includes a focus on choosing the right technologies that allow it, as well as providing training and data privacy awareness within the human teams.
Tools such as icaria DP stand out as a key ally in navigating this context. Helping companies elevate their capacities to ensure GDPR and other regulations compliance, the platform can identify personal data, apply profile-based plans, and automatically ensure data blocking and deletion across multiple applications.
Want to learn more about icaria DP and how it can help your organization navigate data subject rights? Learn more about us and get in touch with us.
