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Is Your UC System GDPR Compliant?

  By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC

When people think about data protection these days, they tend to focus on personal information related to online surfing, and banking and credit card databases. But unified communications systems also touch and hold personal data. So, like other solutions and systems that involve personal data, UC solutions must meet the Europe Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation requirements.

“Current enterprise telecommunication solutions are state-of-the-art IT infrastructures with critical – but often forgotten – access to your company’s personal data,” notes RSconnect.

The company adds that “enterprise desktop phones can be secured from unauthorized access. But unfortunately, in general log-in procedures to desktop telephones are very often not so user friendly and people tend to forget to log out at the end of the day in order to save themselves from another complex log-in procedure in the morning. As a result, many advanced telephones are ‘open’ day and night, providing easy access to personal data of customers and patients.”

That is a real problem, RSconnect suggests, and could cause businesses to run afoul of GDPR requirements. 

So that’s part of the GDPR challenge for enterprise telephony and UC. Here’s part of the upside of GDPR and UC, according to Polly Buckland at Eazi.

“Collaborative technology means you won’t have to rely on a paper trail to track interactions with customers and colleagues,” she writes. “So, online meetings with be recorded, messages with be stored, and files can be securely shared. Under GDPR regulations, this information can be requested at any time. Unified communications means that data is easy to access without having to sift through paper files.”

She adds that a well-configured UC network also will have different access levels for different departments. That, she says, is crucial for GDPR and UC.