Frequently Asked Questions on PrighterGDPR-Rep

Does our company need an Art 27 GDPR representative in the EU?
Companies established outside the EU are required to appoint an EU representative according to Art. 27 of GDPR if they:
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offer goods and services to individuals in the EU (e.g. providing a website in an EU language, offering payments in EUR) or
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monitor their behaviour (e.g. cookie profiling).
According to the Guideline 3/2018 of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) on the territorial scope of GDPR, this applies to controllers and processors as well. For processors not established in the European Union the applicability of GDPR depends on what the “processing activities” are related to. If the data processing conducted for the controller is related to the offering of goods and services or to the monitoring of behaviour, GDPR applies to the processor in addition to the controller.
According to Art 27 GDPR, controllers or processors are exempted from the regulation if ALL of the following criteria are met:
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personal data is only processed occasionally, which is only from time to time and non-systematic; AND
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data processing does not include large-scale processing of special categories of personal data or personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences; AND
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data processing is unlikely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of data subjects.
It is hard to meet ALL of these criteria, in particular the criterion of processing data only occasionally proves to be a big hurdle for most businesses.
Your company's intention to establish commercial relations with EU customers needs to have manifested in a business activity. The mere accessibility of a website in the EU, a mention on the website of an e-mail or geographical address, or of a telephone number without an international code, does not, of itself, provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate the intention to offer goods or services to EU customers. The EDPB listed the factors to be taken into account when assessing if goods and services are offered in its Guideline 3/2018 on the territorial scope of GDPR. Some of the factors are:
- using languages of EU Member States or offering payments in a currency of an EU Member State;
- using Google or Facebook ads to address the EU market or any other marketing activity directed towards EU customers;
- mentioning EU references or testimonials;
- an international nature of the activity at hand, such as certain tourist activities;
- mentioning dedicated addresses or phone numbers to be reached from an EU country;
- use of EU top-level domains;
- description of travel instructions from one or more other EU
Member States to the place
where the service is provided; - offering the delivery of goods to EU Member States;
In a nutshell, if your company has any outbound activity in the EU or if your company enables or guides EU customers to find your company's product, GDPR is likely to apply.
Not all online collection or analysis of personal data of individuals in the EU counts automatically as “monitoring”. Monitoring the behaviour of EU data subjects implies an intention to collect data for a specific purpose. Therefore, any kind of tracking of natural persons on the Internet, including the potential subsequent use of profiling techniques qualifies as "monitoring". Again, the EDPB gives some more guidance in the Guidelines 03/2018. According to the EDPB, monitoring may not only take place in the internet but also through wearables and other smart devices. Monitoring activities include:
- Behavioural advertisement
- Geo-localisation activities, in particular for marketing purposes
- Online tracking through the use of cookies or other tracking techniques such as fingerprinting
- Personalised diet and health analytics services online
- CCTV
- Market surveys and other behavioural studies based on individual profiles
- Monitoring or regular reporting on an individual’s health status
The GDPR extends its ‘territorial scope’ to controllers and processors that have their registered office in a country outside of the EU. As a result, the exorbitantly high penalties of up to €10 million or 2% of the worldwide annual turnover can apply if a processor or a controller does not comply with the obligation of appointing an EU representative. The penalties may be enforced by individual claims or by authorities. Furthermore, your partners in the EU may be obliged to stop transferring data to your company.
What to look for in an Art 27 EU GDPR representative and what is Prighter’s approach?
The representative shall act as an addressee for authorities and data subjects to facilitate the communication with processors and controllers outside the EU. The representative needs to be mandated in writing by the controller or processor to evidence the appointment. Furthermore, the representative shall, according to Art 30 GDPR, maintain the records of processing activities and shall make the record available to the supervisory authority on request.
How does Prighter's offering match these requirements?
- To facilitate the communication Prighter established a network of offices all over Europe and developed high-end tech solutions for the communication with authorities and data subjects;
- A writen appointment is part of the onboarding flow. Clients can sign a Power of Attorney directly online in an end-to-end digital process; and
- Currently we assist clients in the drafting of the records of processing activities by providing prefilled templates and extensive support and guidance.
First of all the EDPB clarifies in its Guideline 03/2018 on territorial scope that only one representative needs to be appointed for all EU Member States which can then act in all other Member States. In case a significant proportion of the customer base is in one particular Member State it is best practice that the representative is established in such Member State. In any case shall the representative be easily accessible for data subjects in all Member States no matter where the representative is located.
How does Prighter approach these requirements?
- Prighter has offices and partner offices in all major EU Member States to make you compliant with the requirement of a local and easy accessible representative for all your customers no matter where located; and
- Prighter is not only a postbox but has privacy professionals in all location.
Our goal is to enable non-European companies to comply with GDPR through a combination of legal expertise and technology to deliver this expertise. We put the practical insights we gain as a law firm due to our role as the appointed Data Protection Officer (DPO) for major banks, financial service providers, tech companies,... into the development of our tools for handling Data Subject Request (DSR) and data breaches and for the management of the records of processing activities. We support you in all privacy related matters and above all in helping your business grow by enabling you to improve customer trust by handling privacy matters in an efficient and professional way.
What is the difference between a DPO and an EU GDPR representative?
see Word file
see word file
How can our company appoint Prighter as our EU GDPR representative?
The onboarding process is simple and can be completed in a couple of minutes, but the best part is: We grant your company a risk-free 14 day trial to keep the appointment completely risk-free.
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Choose a plan. The available plans depend on your company's size. The size of the company is defined according to the Eurostat categories and therefore by the number of persons employed. "Employees" includes part-time workers and freelancers.
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Enter your company's details. Your risk-free 14 day trial period starts when you complete this step.
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After registering, you will find a download button for the Power of Attorney (PoA). A signed PoA is required as evidence of the appointment of Prighter as your representative in case of requests by supervisory authorities. We kindly ask you to sign and upload your PoA.
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Our team will check and verify the provided information on your company and the PoA. This is usually done within a couple of hours.
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After the PoA has been approved, your company has successfully appointed Prighter as Art 27 GDPR representative for the whole EU. You can log in to your client area where you can find templates and information on what you can include in your homepage and privacy policy.
Contrary to the appointment of a DPO, you don't need to notify a data protection authority of the representation. In case a data protection authority has an inquiry about a company, it takes the necessary information from the company's privacy policy.
Please note that other than the EU GDPR representation, a NIS representation needs to be notofied to the competent authority.
Every separate entity requires representation according to Art 27 GDPR. Nevertheless, Prighter offers your group the option to sign up for a group package to manage the representation of your affiliates through one main account, with sub-accounts for every affiliate. The requirement is a centralised data protection management within the group to handle both the main account and the sub-accounts with one centralised login. The number of affiliates covered depends on the package you signed up for. The "small enterprise" package includes one affiliate, the "medium enterprise" package includes up to 5 affiliates, and the "large enterprise' package includes an unlimited number of affiliates. All included group entities must operate in the same industry, offer the same range of products, and have the same or a linked brand.
Subscription pricing is based on your company size according to official Eurostat categories and the number of entities to be covered, starting from €19 per month. We offer a 14-day trial period on all subscriptions so that you can get to know our service without any risk. All of our pricing is transparent and there are no hidden costs as we do not charge per request from data subjects. You can choose between monthly, quarterly, or yearly payments. Your company gets a discount for quarterly payments and an even higher discount for the yearly payments option.
Furthermore, you can choose between paying with credit card, or via bank transfer. We accept almost all credit cards. Bank transfers is acceptable in EUR, USD and GBP for annual payments. Please contact our support team should you have any further questions!