How can you evaluate data privacy risks in your business?

In my experience you should not underestimate the task to identify data sources, data categories and the interplay between regulatory requirements and getting it into a repository. The task is well described, but especially medium sized companies usually face difficulties in the identification of personal data as ROPAs often lack specific information from which you can assess risks. As risks usually arise for different risk objects (Controller / Individual) the process described ist the starting point in order to assess regulatory requirements e.g. layed down in Art. 5 GDPR such as lawful processing. When you look at privacy risks you should not only identify risks in your business processes but also in your privacy management.

I'm going to say this is an easy exercise as most colleagues will be able to give you a heads up on areas of risk, not all, but enough to get you started. I find that most people understand a risk for what it's worth and with a standard set of questions you can measure the level of risk by colleague or role which allows you to risk evaluate a team or department. You'll be able to undertand all types of risk , some not data but health and safety , security etc which allows you to feed into other people around the business. For example putting a server in a unlocked cabinet next to a back door left open all day for colleagues and suppliers to come and go. All colleagues now it's a rick but they were never asked how to stop it being a risk.

A worthwhile exercise for many reasons and sometimes to help collegues see how they fit in across the business , not how it should work but how it does work in reality

Under GDPR you should have a repository of these information at least in your ROPAs (record of processing activity) in order to understand the data you are processing in a specific business process. The more granular the ROPAs the more you can put out of the documentation. In my experience you rarely see process diagrams in ROPAs but I can clearly recommend having these. However you should not only look at technical risks which you will be able to easily assess when a goog documentation at hand. Data privacy comes ususally with further regulatory basic risks e.g. the principels of Art. 5 GDPR and accountability. A good visual documentation usually helps assessing tranfer risks as well

Score your identified risks with a score card method to ascertain where you need to put your resources to fix it. Start with the biggest or most valuable risks and work down, along with the ease of resolving the risk

Critical aspect of an engaged privacy culture is an open door policy for the privacy team. You need to be approachable, at any time! Encourage employees to freely share privacy concerns any time. Annual data protection training is not enough. Consider all the teams that have access to personal data and ensure that you provide bespoke tailored training with practical examples based on the nature of their role and not hypothetical scenarios. Real examples land differently and help translate the legal jargon of most data protection training content.

In my view, it is crucial to assess data protection risks from different perspectives. As data protection is a fundamental right, the risk to the data subject must be placed at the center of considerations. As you determine third-party risks, this also has a significant impact on risk appetite and risk mitigation for the organization's risk management. This interaction must be taken into account, whereby my experience is that, particularly from a compliance perspective, only one's own risks are often considered, which can lead to an inadequate view of risk, e.g. for fines and regulatory measures.