Recent research has revealed that a quarter of pension schemes feel that they won’t meet the compliance deadline for the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The figures from ITM revealed that whilst 75% of pension schemes had begun to prepare for the regulations, four-fifths were either uncertain or not planning to arrange an assessment of their GDPR measures in order to gauge adequacy.
The long-term cost of the required measures was also seen as an area of ambiguity, with almost half (48%) of those surveyed stating that they didn’t know how much implementation of revised rules would cost their scheme.
The figures also indicated that much of the processing in regard to the GDPR is being worked on by administrators; the figures revealed that 71% of those asked were using their administrator to keep a ‘record of processing activities.’ Over two-thirds (67%) were helping to update procedures to comply with the new regulations, 62% were putting data breach response plans into place and 57% were updating member communications.
Commenting on the data was Duncan Howorth. The Executive Chairman of ITM stated: “We had previously been concerned about a general lack of readiness for GDPR amongst pension schemes, which is understandable given the near constant state of change that pension schemes are faced with in the world of pensions. So, on the one hand, it’s really positive to see that confidence is high about the ability to meet the May 2018 deadline. But the level of certainty around both cost and a lack of independent assessment still have the potential to raise issues further down the line.
“Both the implementation and maintenance of many GDPR processes will be complex and therefore demanding on time, which in itself makes it crucial for pension schemes to get a much clearer idea of the cost impact. And perhaps even more importantly, these demands highlight the need for independent assessment of GDPR processes, to ensure that valuable time is not being spent incorrectly and that unnecessary costs – and even significant penalties – are avoided further down the line.”
