Simplify and Strengthen GDPR Compliance

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Learn about key GDPR security requirements and how Zscaler can help.

Ensure data protection and privacy with robust, GDPR-compliant security

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Protect confidentiality and availability of sensitive and personal data
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Maintain safeguards for control, enforcement, and logging
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Confidently meet your obligations as a data controller

GDPR Definition

What is the GDPR?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a key data privacy standard in the European Union. It defines how organizations worldwide must collect and process the personal data of EU citizens and residents, aiming to:

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Protect the privacy and security of individuals' personal data
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Enforce lawfulness, fairness, and transparency in data handling
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Improve EU citizens' control over their personal data and its portability
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Standardize data protection laws across EU member nations

In place since 2018, the GDPR has affected the data privacy landscape around the globe, inspiring similar laws in California (CCPA), China (PIPL), India (DPDP), and elsewhere.

Understanding the GDPR

Know your role in GDPR compliance

To comply with GDPR requirements, you need to understand your responsibilities as a data controller, where you store the data to which the GDPR applies, and your specific obligations. Most of today's critical business processes are digital, which creates a massive amount of data and data flows you must understand and account for to stay compliant.

To fully grasp your organization's data footprint and compliance posture, you can break down the GDPR into a few core concepts:

Data flows

Define what data across your organization is classified as personal data, and understand how it is stored and processed across your third-party suppliers, partners, and vendors. This will reveal your data footprint.

Data security and control

Once you know your data footprint, identify the security controls needed to protect this data and minimize risk. This accounts for data stored internally, as well as an audit of controls used by third parties.

Data retention and deletion

Understand how long you need to retain data under the GDPR. Many industries already have their own specific regulations, while others may need to define requirements based on internal factors.

Your Compliance Partner

Our commitment to GDPR compliance

As a data processor, we ensure that our services are fully GDPR compliant.

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Data protection

To ensure confidentiality and availability, Zscaler stores a limited amount of personal data (e.g., IP address, URLs, user IDs) and does not process or store any special categories or “sensitive” data. Our cloud native security platform performs all inspection in memory only.

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Security safeguards

For control, enforcement, and logging, our ultra-fast cloud architecture integrates three key components: the Central Authority, ZIA Public Service Edge, and Nanolog Servers. Learn more about these components in our help article.

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Partnership in compliance

Our services and agreements firmly align with GDPR mandates, and we are committed to helping you stay compliant. To understand your GDPR compliance obligations as the data controller, and what to expect from Zscaler as the data processor, please see this simple chart.

Our Architecture

How our architecture supports GDPR compliance

Memory-only transactions

Transactional data is only stored in memory, never written to disk. You can choose to have logs written to disk in a physical location that complies with GDPR regional regulations.

Nanolog technology

Our unique Nanolog technology indexes, compresses, and tokenizes your transaction logs. Only a user with a full log history and access to our Central Authority can assemble meaningful personal data.

Full TLS/SSL inspection

Infinitely scalable TLS/SSL inspection is a core function of our cloud native platform. No matter how your traffic grows, gain unmatched control and visibility for personal data across all your encrypted traffic.

Learn more about our architecture and data privacy

Zscaler's Unified Cybersecurity Platform

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Learn more

Learn and explore resources

White paper

A Complete Guide to GDPR Compliance

Read the white paper
Resource

Data Privacy and Protection Overview

Visit our webpage
Resource

Zero Trust + AI: Secure and Optimize Your Organization

Read the ebook
Explore all resources

FAQ

FAQs

GDPR compliance is mandatory for any organization that processes the personal data of individuals within the European Union (EU), regardless of where the organization is based. Noncompliance can result in significant fines and penalties.

Organizations that do not meet GDPR compliance can face fines of up to €20 million or 4% of their global revenue from the past financial year, whichever is higher. These penalties are designed to ensure that organizations take data protection seriously. In addition to fines, noncompliance can lead to reputational damage, legal action, and a loss of customer trust.

Talk to an expert

Learn more about how we can partner to help you stay GDPR compliant and secure.

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