Top 3 Tips to Ensure GDPR Compliance in Office 365

Since its introduction in 2018, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has necessitated many businesses altering their data protection policies to ensure the treatment of personal information meets legal regulatory levels. With tighter restrictions around the processing of personal data, businesses have had to rethink and update their internal operations and service provision.

Luckily for businesses, many tech companies endeavoured to alter their service offerings to make the transition easier. Microsoft was one of the first to pioneer the incorporation of specialised tools and features designed to protect individual privacy rights. Today we explore the inbuilt features introduced by Microsoft to see how your business can ensure its GDPR compliancy.

What is GDPR?

In simple terms, GDPR is the governing legislation that dictates how a businesses uses, protects and disposes of personal information. For those who may not have a detailed understanding of the legislation, it can be broken down into 7 key principles that guide businesses in data management. These principles are; lawfulness, fairness and transparency; purpose limitation; data minimisation; accuracy; storage limitation; integrity and confidentiality; and accountability. All principles help businesses understand the specific boundaries around necessary and legitimate data collection.

As mentioned, a number of services have changed their provisions in order to help businesses become GDPR compliant with ease. Today we provide our 3 top tips to ensure you’re achieving compliance with Office 365.

#1 – Check your GDPR Compliance with Microsoft

To benefit clients, Microsoft has developed and offers a free assessment tool to help businesses establish their GDPR and ISO compliance. The Microsoft Compliance Management tool gives businesses an overview score of compliance – breaking down different elements of your business’ data handling with individualised scores. At Fitzrovia IT we can conduct a full Microsoft 365 assessment of your infrastructure for free, breaking down the intricacies of your systems based on GDPR articles, also highlighting the key aspects of policy that need to be addressed for external audits.

#2 – Utilise Microsoft Data Protection Assessments

To enhance your compliance assessment, you can review and implement more in-depth assessment templates. Microsoft can get you to the baseline of compliance for your industry, rating your business against GDPR legislation and industry standards. The higher your compliance score the more protected your business is for the future, protecting you against potential legal infringements.

#3 – Act on Microsoft Action Points

Alongside your overall compliance score, Microsoft provide improvement scores that can be turned into actionable points. With 100s of aspects of compliance to be investigated, our team will review and action all agreed upon points to improve your GDPR standing. We can individually review and strengthen all apps within the 365 suite, also implementing longstanding Microsoft alerts so you can stay aware of compliance threats.

Ensuring Your Office 365 Compliance

As it’s legally necessary to ensure your business is GDPR compliant, you must act to ensure you have the correct policies and procedures in place to protect your clients’ personal data. If you use the Office 365 suite then it’s important to capitalise on the inbuilt GDPR features and engage the services of your MSP partner to ensure compliance across the board.

As a Microsoft Gold Partner, Fitzrovia IT are a trusted provider of Microsoft 365 services. Our expert team can help you ensure compliance across your 365 apps with a free compliance overview assessment, developing your strategy going forward.

Contact one of our team today to find out how we can help ensure GDPR compliance policies are in place for your business, or to obtain a free overview of your Office 365 suite.