Stephen's life @GBG
Tell us about you and your team?
In the Privacy team, we work across the company and all around the world providing guidance and ensuring compliance with GBG’s Privacy Approach and all local market regulations relating to data protection and the right to privacy. We also act as an expert point of contact for individuals, our customers, suppliers, team members, investors and regulators.
We originally started off with just two team members covering our fraud prevention solutions in the UK. Since then, we’ve grown to a global team of over 20 data privacy experts covering privacy laws in all the countries that we operate in around the world and covering our global identity verification and location intelligence solutions.
“As a tech and data-driven company processing billions of transactions every year, we rely on the breadth and depth of our data to serve our customers.”
The team has grown fast, hasn’t it?
As the saying goes, “mighty oaks from little acorns grow” – great things come from small beginnings. That’s definitely true with the Privacy team.
Being one of the original team members, it’s been great to see the hard work that the team has put in to grow and adapt, helping us to achieve compliance with new and existing global privacy laws. Our Work Where and When You Want approach here at GBG has really helped us to recruit the experts we need in the countries where their expertise is needed.
Stephen with Privacy team members at the GBG Summer Party at Chester Races, on the way to the Picasso Privacy Awards in London and heading out on the GBG Virtual Challenge in the Delamere Forest, Cheshire.
Why is it important to have a global team?
There are around 120 countries around the world with laws to ensure that the right to data protection and privacy are respected.
As the leading expert in global digital identity, GBG must comply with global data protection laws, regulations and guidelines. Many of our customers operate globally and rely on us to manage their data within the different jurisdictions in which they operate. Having a global privacy team with local expertise makes this possible; we will often have more than one member of the Privacy team working with customers to provide assurance of international compliance.
“Our Work Where and When You Want approach here at GBG has really helped us to recruit the experts we need in the countries where their expertise is needed.”
Why is data privacy important to GBG?
Well, it’s a legal requirement first and foremost, but it’s also about building trust. As a tech and data-driven company processing billions of transactions every year, we rely on the breadth and depth of our data to serve our customers – so we have to take privacy and information security very seriously.
Our team includes data protection experts who ensure we have the right controls in place, data subject rights specialists who process requests, as well as a dedicated team of data auditors who review third-party due diligence and data licences among our data suppliers, audit customers, suppliers and internally to ensure compliance with privacy legislation and our data licences (from our data suppliers).
