GDPR Implementation: The Bot Solution

In a world where the volume of information generated and exchanged is growing every day, data protection has become a huge concern for regular citizens. In response, EU legislators have released the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), applicable from 25 May 2018.

This regulation's main impacts are granting the following rights to customers:

the right to know what type of information has been stored about you the right to have your data "forgotten" the right to be informed of a breach involving your data within 72 hours With just four months to go before GDPR comes into effect, many organisations that hold or process personal data are not yet sufficiently prepared, and may be exposed to large fines (up to €20 million or 4% of the global annual turnover) if they're not ready on time.

The same personal data are often stored in dozens of IT systems, causing many to wonder how they can implement the regulation in the appropriate timeframe. From experience, I can safely say that doing it manually is not feasible. A new IT tool may be not the best option neither, as it will come with a high cost and a slow deployment speed. The best answer may be robotic process automation (RPA), a new kind of workforce that uses software robots ("bots") to automate repetitive, high-volume, manual, and rule-based tasks. Easily designed to one's needs, and quickly testable and deployable, bots require little investment and work at the "presentation layer" of computer systems, mimicking exactly what a human user would...