A survey covering the data archiving activities of senior IT staff, across 150 UK medium to large organisations, has revealed that major improvements are needed in these practices, within the eight month period before GDPR is enforced.

The research, conducted by bluesource, indicates that only 30% surveyed claimed their staff are able to find all types of structured and unstructured data quickly and easily – so are currently unprepared to cope with the demands GDPR compliance.

>See also: GDPR compliance: what organisations need to know

Of those questioned, 70% admit they don’t possess effective processes and systems to swiftly submit data to regulators – and risk being exposed to penalties. However, nearly 85% believe that it’s important to be able to quickly access sensitive data for GDPR compliance and legal purposes. Only 40% of organisations are completely happy with their current archiving experiences, the remaining 60% highlighted that key areas of improvement included; better speed of searching, filtering and retrieval – of all data types.

>See also: GDPR: the good, the not so bad and the opportunities

Andy Ward, managing director at bluesource said, “It’s becoming clear that being able to swiftly access archived data and establish what can be deleted – whilst still complying with both regulatory and legal obligations – is a major challenge for organisations. To avoid the risks of GDPR non-compliance and other legal claims, organisations urgently need to better understand the lifecycle of their data – so it can then be correctly stored, managed, discovered and protected.