Skills for Data Protection (2019)
As organisations collect and process increasing amounts of personal data, strong data protection practices are no longer the responsibility of specialist staff alone. In its 2019 position paper, Skills for Data Protection, ICDL Foundation highlights the need for all employees who handle personal information to understand the principles of safe, secure, and compliant data processing.
The paper argues that workers who lack data protection knowledge can expose organisations to significant risks, including regulatory penalties, reputational damage, loss of customer trust, and costly data breaches. It emphasises that effective data protection requires a culture of awareness across the entire workforce, supported by structured training and recognised certification rather than relying on employees to learn informally.
Published in 2019, the context of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the paper calls on employers and policymakers to invest in practical data protection skills for all workers. ICDL Foundation maintains that widespread data protection competence is essential for protecting individuals’ personal information and ensuring organisations can meet their legal and ethical responsibilities in an increasingly digital world.
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