Hayward Aviation director Matthew Day is offering to help business aviation companies understand and manage risks associated with the EU’s new general data protection regulation (GDPR). Hayward Aviation (Booth G100), a trading name of JLT Specialty and part of the JLT Group, is a specialist insurance broker. In addition to GDPR assistance, the company offers insurance products to provide clients financial protection.
GDPR not only gives people more control over their own data, “it will also force companies to take a hard look at the way they store information and ensure that the way they collect, process, and store data is safe,” Hayward explained. The risk for companies that fail to comply with GDPR is both potentially harmful to the company’s reputation and also could mean financial penalties of up to 4 percent of annual global turnover.
It is incumbent on businesses to create robust processes to manage and store customer data but, as Hayward pointed out, “What happens if the best procedures and processes fail, leaving your business exposed?” Careful processes could fail, for example, due to cybersecurity breaches, leaving a company exposed to possible damages.
There are other ways for data to be mismanaged, simple problems such as forwarding an email to the wrong person or using “reply to all” incorrectly. Hayward warns that the costs associated with such a breach could be enormous, not just to pay for investigating and rectifying the issue but also for potential fines “that could run to tens of thousands of euros, pounds, or dollars.”
Of even more concern is the extreme sensitivity of business aviation clients’ data. “The reputational impact of an accidental release of personal details of VVIP private jet owners or users could be devastating to the long-term business survival of jet operators,” he said. “Data has genuinely now become a business asset that needs managing and protecting.”