As we have shared in this edition of the Atlas Newsletter, The European Union’s (EU’s) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is widely regarded as being more robust than existing rules and will soon become the global gold standard for how personal information is handled.
We recently held two special events in Melbourne and Sydney, discussing the impacts the GDPR may have on companies and their travel programs. The events were led by Sasha Kalb, Vice President of Compliance & Risk for American Express Global Business Travel (GBT), who took attendees through what the GDPR changes were, how they will affect organisations, what records need to be kept and how to best protect data.
Sasha was joined by industry leaders, including:
- Victor Akkari – Chief Information Security Officer, Cochlear
- Philip Catania – Managing Partner, Corrs Chambers Westgarth
- Rafael Chiang – Information Security Manager, Allianz
- Jeffrey Choi – Group Chief Information Security Officer, Qantas
- Celeste Lowe – Cyber Strategy and Engagement Manager, Qantas
These leaders shared how they manage data protection and privacy within their organisations, their key challenges and best practices on how to effectively develop and implement the new policy within organisations.
Held at the InterContinental Hotel in both Melbourne and Sydney, the events were well attended and highly engaging, highlights include:
- When data breaches and cyber attacks occur, the damage to an organisation can be overwhelming and immediate. Increasingly, cyber security must be added to a company’s compliance and risk program, along with other elements including corruption and bribery, data privacy, extensive use of third parties, and employee duty of care.
- We will be taking measures to comply with these new regulatory standards across our global business, including in Asia Pacific. It’s imperative that under these regulations, organisations that hold customer data within the EU will also need to provide a high level of protection, and explicitly know where all their data is stored.
For more information on GDPR, please see the article in this edition of the Atlas Newsletter with specific information for companies in Asia Pacific.