UK firms lack data quality to meet GDPR, finds Royal Mail research

A survey conducted by the Royal Mail’s Data Services arm has discovered that three in 10 companies across the UK are not upholding data quality standards that are required by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), set to be written into UK law from next year.

Only two-thirds of organisations have sufficient enforcement processes to make sure data quality is up to spec of the EU’s GDPR, with one third falling short - more than twice the number recorded in the last installment of “The use and management of customer data” survey released by Royal Mail in 2016.

More than half of UK organisations also said they were unsure whether third-party data providers would comply with the GDPR deadlines, too.

Making sure that data quality is kept high - or “data cleansing” - is a key part of organisations’ preparedness for the new legislation. Though 24.2 per cent of those surveyed say that cleaner data would strengthen their online marketing, 22.9 per cent said that low-quality data is hampering their business.

Just over one in ten respondents - 20.6 per cent - say that their organisational cultures “do not value” keeping data to a high standard.

As a result, say the Royal Mail report’s authors, companies may ignore third parties and turn their attentions internally to focus on making the most of the data they may already have in house.

Jim Conning, Royal Mail Data Services’ managing director, said that keeping hold of customers had also raised in importance among respondents.

He added: “That suggests to me that people are finally looking at their customer base and asking ‘how can we better engage?’ This might be driven by third-party being harder to find because it is explicitly opted in. There will be a more limited pool of third-party data.”

The survey was conducted in Summer 2017, polling 281 of Royal Mail’s customers and members of the DataIQ networking organisation.