Brexit, GDPR, and Data Protection: Where Cronofy stands on the UK government’s proposals
Cronofy confirms its ongoing commitment to data protection and plans to incorporate in the Netherlands under EU data protection regulations.
Data privacy and security are and always will be top on our list of priorities. We strive to maintain the highest level of security; be it with our continued efforts to obtaining certifications that prove how well we protect data, including ISO27001, ISO27018 and SOC 2 Type 2, as well as our commitment to GDPR and CCPA – we never compromise when it comes to protecting our customers and users’ data. It is what sets us apart from the competition.
When the UK government announced proposals to move away from GDPR and downgrade data protection following Brexit, our CEO and co-founder, Adam Bird, simply had to take action and speak out.
Adam published a post on his personal blog, which TechCrunch subsequently covered in this article. The topic powerfully resonates with the entire UK technology sector, which is generally feeling perturbed by these government announcements. Our position as custodians of huge amounts of personal data means that the recently announced proposal must be taken with utmost seriousness.
We want to stress one thing; our customers can rest assured that our data protection standards will be unaffected by the UK government proposals. The EU approves UK GDPR legislation as adequate for processing EU citizens’ data. The UK government is proposing changes, but it will be a while before any changes get voted on by the UK parliament.
However, we understand that our customers may be concerned about being contracted under UK data protection laws. Therefore, we decided it was important to move swiftly and preemptively to offer them another option as soon as possible.
As explained in Adam’s post, we are establishing a presence in the Netherlands, Cronofy BV, and will offer our current and future EU customers the opportunity to contract with this new entity. That will become the new HQ for all of our GDPR activities, meaning we can be under the oversight of the Dutch data regulator and thus the EU. The customer data under this contract will continue to be governed by GDPR as we believe it should be.
Adam had the following to say:
“We were feeling more and more uncomfortable with the position that the UK government was taking over data privacy. While Cronofy will always do the right thing, there were increasing questions about whether the UK data protection rules would continue to match that.
“To demonstrate our commitment to protecting personal data, it was only right that we incorporate back in the European Union, thus giving our customers the confidence that our words are backed up by legal obligation.”
If you’re interested in contracting with Cronofy BV, please contact your account manager or email us at support@cronofy.com and we will notify you as soon as this is available. Likewise, if you have any questions or concerns about our data protection and security commitments, get in touch – we’d be more than happy to discuss it with you.