GDPR Art.5.1f: Integrity and Confidentiality

Start with a proper risk assessment. Identify what threatens the personal data you process - both external risks (cyberattacks, theft, natural disasters) and internal ones (accidental disclosure, employees with too much access, poor disposal practices). Evaluate each risk by likelihood and potential impact on data subjects. Implement technical controls proportionate to those risks. At a minimum: encrypt personal data in transit and at rest, enforce role-based access controls with multi-factor authentication, keep up with security patching, deploy firewalls and intrusion detection, and maintain tested backup and disaster recovery procedures. Put organisational measures in place too. Write clear security policies, train staff regularly on threats like phishing, enforce clear desk and clear screen practices, document your incident response and breach notification procedures, and assess the security posture of every third-party processor before you hand them data. Build detection capability. Log and monitor access to personal data, set up alerts for suspicious activity, and make sure someone is actually watching. Quick detection is critical - you have only 72 hours to notify the supervisory authority of a breach under Article 33, and that clock starts when you become aware. Test your defences regularly. Run penetration tests, vulnerability assessments, and security audits. Review incidents and near-misses for lessons learned. Security is not a one-time project - threats evolve, and your controls need to evolve with them.