UK businesses set for fines totalling up to £15bn from New EU Data Protection Regulations

Research conducted by Learning Technologies Group, a world-leader in the workplace e-learning industry, has estimated that UK businesses will be facing fines up to £15bn with the introduction of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on 25 May 2018

Under GDPR, a penalty of either €20m or 4 per cent of annual turnover – whichever is greater – can be levied against a business for failure to transfer or process data in accordance with the rights of individuals concerned.

Ahead of GDPR coming into effect, Learning Technologies Group has found that over eight in ten businesses (82.5 per cent) consider data to have a significant impact on their organisation. However, the research has also found that businesses are underprepared for GDPR, despite a recent growth of e-learning programmes to help businesses understand and navigate the new regulations.

Learning Technologies Group plc CEO Jonathan Satchell said:“The GDPR floodgates are about to open, and businesses are now calling out for a lifeline. While have seen take-up of GDPR training, only a fraction of companies appear to have taken the due care to inform employees on how to comply. GDPR has been recklessly implemented, and with potential fines greater than the profit margins of many business, there is serious possibility of a GDPR casualty putting jobs and companies at risk.”

With Learning & Development departments tasked with improving understanding of new data requirements, the research undertaken by Learning Technologies Group has also found that over one in six learning and development professionals (18.5 per cent) have no metric of success in their organisation.

Of those businesses that have targets set for learning & development, 38 per cent said their key metric of success was around user numbers or satisfaction of learning programmes. One-third (33 per cent) of employers go one step further to measure the impact on their people, and only 10.5 per cent actually measure the business impact of learning on their organisation by looking at return on investment.