Notification about breaches and incidents to affected data subjects

A personal data breach must be reported to the supervisory authority if the breach may pose a risk to data subjects rights and freedoms. Data subjects, on the other hand, must be informed if the breach is likely to pose a high risk to their rights and freedoms. For example, registrants may take steps to reduce the adverse effect (e.g. by closing their credit card).

The notification must include the following information:

• a clear description of the personal data breach
• the name and contact details of the data protection officer or other contact point from which further information can be obtained
• the likely consequences of the personal data breach
• the measures proposed or already taken by the controller; where appropriate, measures to mitigate possible adverse effects.

Our organization has pre-defined procedures through which the detected security breach will be addressed. The process may include e.g. the following things:

• who are part of a team that is ready to respond to breaches
• how and along what channel the entire team is immediately notified of the breach
• the team determines the severity (low, medium, high) of the breach based on predefined criteria
• the breach management is continued with a larger group according to the severity level