The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has launched a new GDPR awareness campaign after revealing that just 8% of the UK’s smallest firms are prepared for the new EU privacy regulation.
It revealed that over a third of sole traders (37%) and micro-businesses (35%) have not yet started preparations for the GDPR, while 18% of UK small businesses haven’t heard of the regulation at all.
Some 35% are still only in the early stages of preparing for the new regulation — which represents the biggest change to the region’s privacy laws in a generation.
Those in arts & entertainment are least prepared, with over half (52%) not having started compliance efforts. At the other end of the scale are financial services firms, 82% of which have either started or completed their work.
The FSB claimed it will cost small businesses on average around £1000 to achieve GDPR compliance.
FSB national chairman, Mike Cherry, said the organization would step-up its efforts to support the small business community, while ensuring the government implements the regulation in a way which treats SMBs fairly.
“The GDPR is the biggest shake-up in data protection to date and many small businesses will be concerned that the changes will be too much to handle,” he added. “It’s clear that a large part of the small business community is still unaware of the steps that they need to take to comply and may be left playing catch-up.”
The UK’s GDPR regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), has backed the FSB’s new awareness-raising campaign: ‘BeDataReady’.
“The ICO’s website offers a number of ways in which organizations of all sizes, and all sectors, can self-serve to get the help they need. We will study the survey findings carefully to see if we can improve the help we offer,” said information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham.
“We also know that many representative bodies and sector associations are also providing excellent GDPR advice and support for their members.”