{"id":1235,"date":"2026-02-11T10:55:01","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T10:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tsfactory.com\/forums\/blogs\/?p=1235"},"modified":"2026-02-11T10:55:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T10:55:59","slug":"what-is-gdpr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tsfactory.com\/forums\/blogs\/what-is-gdpr\/","title":{"rendered":"What is GDPR?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/gdpr.eu\/\">General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)<\/a>\u00a0is the toughest privacy and security law in the world. Though it was drafted and passed by the European Union (EU), it imposes obligations onto organizations anywhere, so long as they target or collect data related to people in the EU. The regulation was put into effect on May 25, 2018. The GDPR will levy harsh fines against those who violate its privacy and security standards, with penalties reaching into the tens of millions of euros.<\/p>\n<p>With the GDPR, Europe is signaling its firm stance on data privacy and security at a time when more people are entrusting their personal data with cloud services and breaches are a daily occurrence. The regulation itself is large, far-reaching, and fairly light on specifics, making GDPR compliance a daunting prospect, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).<\/p>\n<p>We created this website to serve as a resource for SME owners and managers to address specific challenges they may face. While it is not a substitute for legal advice, it may help you to understand where to focus your GDPR compliance efforts. We also offer tips on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/gdpr.eu\/email-encryption\/\">privacy tools<\/a>\u00a0and how to mitigate risks. As the GDPR continues to be interpreted, we\u2019ll keep you up to date on evolving best practices.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019ve found this page \u2014 \u201cwhat is the GDPR?\u201d \u2014 chances are you\u2019re looking for a crash course. Maybe you haven\u2019t even found the document itself yet (tip:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/gdpr.eu\/tag\/gdpr\/\">here\u2019s the full regulation<\/a>). Maybe you don\u2019t have time to read the whole thing. This page is for you. In this article, we try to demystify the GDPR and, we hope, make it less overwhelming for SMEs concerned about GDPR compliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)\u00a0is the toughest privacy and security law in the world. Though it was drafted and passed by the European Union (EU), it imposes obligations onto organizations anywhere, so long as they target or collect data related to people in the EU. The regulation was put into effect on May 25, 2018. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-glossary"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is GDPR? - Blogs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tsfactory.com\/forums\/blogs\/what-is-gdpr\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What is GDPR? - Blogs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The\u00a0General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)\u00a0is the toughest privacy and security law in the world. Though it was drafted and passed by the European Union (EU), it imposes obligations onto organizations anywhere, so long as they target or collect data related to people in the EU. The regulation was put into effect on May 25, 2018. 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