GDPR, an alternative view

Job Sheets

So, your engineer or technician still relies on the good old-fashioned job sheet to instruct him both where the job address is, and what he is instructed to do. Often on these sheets is a wide range of other potentially personal information about the client. Here lies the problem, it’s an age-old engineer excuse that he accidentally ‘Lost’ the job ticket or perhaps it blew out of the van window? Leaving the potential for simply 'anyone' to pick it up.

Employee Access

Having received consent from your client that you may store their information, consideration must be made about who in your organisation may see this information. An example of where this goes wrong particularly with regards to data stored digitally on a database is to give everyone full access rights. This situation occurs when a company signs up for a CRM or Field Service Management software agreement and initially sets all users with full access, usually to make things easier for them while setting up. Most packages have flexible control over who can view certain types of information including the ability to update. It's not an ideal situation and could potentially lead to a great deal of private and confidential records being available to anyone that has access to your database.

On-site Records

Many companies hold printed records dating back several years and possibly pre-dating the electronic storage era. Much of this is in filing cabinets, roladex or worse, just in a big pile! This gets moved around from pillar to post over the years with potential for data breach at any time depending of course who you get to do the donkey work. There is also the situation that could occur in instances where the premise security becomes compromised, perhaps overnight.

Password Strength

Passwords are an area often overlooked when it comes to strength or repetitive use. For many, its more than common practice to use a similar password for everything. If this is to your own personal space then you’re simply putting yourself at risk but what if the password being compromised was to the data of hundreds if not thousands of individuals? Password strength and ensuring that its not as simple as name and DOB or the name of the company etc. its easier than you think to simply guess many people’s passwords. For this reason, it is important to add some random upper-case letters, numbers and even a special character somewhere within the password.

I hope this short, alternative look at GDPR proves helpful. The points raised are not to say things should not be done that way, but consideration must be made for the potential breach that may occur if the correct steps are not taken to prevent it.

AutoVu Solutions and the Workforce Manager App can significantly reduce the potential for data breach while at the same time speeding up your processes.

If you would like to know more about our software and the Workforce Manager App, please give us a call where we would be happy to assist.