The stress level of the data protection officer (DPO)
The data protection officer isn't always the best paid person in the organisation. The level of stress that is linked to the job is very high and the mental health of DPOs rarely talked about.
In this short post, I'll highlight some situations to remind you that the DPO's job isn't as easy as some will make you believe:
- Who is in the front-line with the Supervisory Authority?
- Who is put under pressure by the business to try to minimise the impact of a data breach?
- Who struggles to get documentation from IT to prepare for the day there will be a data breach?
- Who is seen as the bad dude/dudette when a 6-months procurement is delayed because the DPO only found out on month 6 and flags the absence of DPIA (data protection impact assssments)?
- Who represents the interest of people your business deals with from staff to clients and other stakeholders to ensure their rights are protected when their personal data is processed?
- Who has to read a lot of material on a regular basis to understand the complexity of data processing, including contradicting laws?
- data, security practices, AI, conduct research on legal cases, procurement
- Who needs to explain the difference between data protection and privacy and why transfers outside the hashtag#EU are not safe even if there is adequacy?
- Who can feel under threat because "a junior or the receptionist could be perceived to be able to do their job for a quarter of the price'?
Your DPO is!
Your DPO is also The Most Important Person in the organisation these days given that data is everywhere.
Be grateful to have one.
Ensure your DPO is trained regularly.
Data protection in 2025 is strategic. If you don't have a DPO, you're probably missing out on an opportunity to improve your data governance.
Bizoneo helps organisations and DPOs by providing a user-friendly solution to understand what data is processed, where and how, to assist in incidents and data breaches investigations and to get meaningful maangement dashboards.
Claude Saulnier
B-Eng - CDPO - CFRCP - CIPP/E
Bizoneo
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