THE Contact Center Association of the Philippines is gearing up for the implementation of the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), mainly focusing on talent development.

The pledge to comply with the new rules for data privacy and cyber security was aired by CCAP through its president Jojo J. Uligan during the CEO forum held last week.

“There will be a lot of initiatives that revolve around talent development. Our business is about our people so we need to have those activities for managers, team leaders, agents, and even executives,” he said in a statement.

CCAP will be holding workshops and other activities to ease the local industry into adapting to the GDPR.

The GDPR is set to take effect on May 25 and will be enforced by the National Privacy Commission (NPC).

The regulation requires local firms servicing EU member states to appoint data protection officers (DPO) to implement the management program monitored by the NPC.

At present NPC said that there are 4,712 public and private agencies with registered DPOs.

NPC chairman Raymond E. Liboro also reminded other agencies that they only have March 8 to register their DPOs.

“You can be number one in your field but if you do not make adjustments in this digital economy, your brand and business will suffer. Invest in trust. We are not helpless,” he said.

Mr. Liboro also reminded the contact agencies that concealing security breaches carries a penalty of imprisonment and a fine ranging P500,000 to P1 million.

This is lower than the non-compliance penalty set by the EU which could either be 4% of the annual revenue of the company or $25 million, depending on which amount is higher. — A.G.A. Mogato

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