Last Update - May 28, 2018
On 25 May 2018, European data protection legislation was updated for the first time in 20 years. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) replaces the 1995 EU Data Protection Directive. The GDPR strengthens the rights that individuals have regarding personal data relating to them and seeks to harmonise data protection laws across Europe, regardless of where that data is processed.
People is committed to GDPR compliance. We are also committed to helping our customers comply with the GDPR by providing stringent privacy and security protections that are built into our service and contracts.
People customers will typically act as the data controller for any personal data they provide to People in connection with their use of our services. The data controller determines the purposes and means of processing personal data, while the data processor processes data on behalf of the data controller. People is a data processor and processes personal data on behalf of the data controller when they use the People facility.
Data controllers are responsible for implementing appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure and demonstrate that any data processing is performed in compliance with the GDPR. Controllers’ obligations relate to principles such as lawfulness, fairness and transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, and accuracy, as well as fulfilling data subjects’ rights with respect to their data.
If you are a data controller, you may find guidance related to your responsibilities under GDPR by regularly checking the website of your national or lead data protection authority.
You should also seek independent legal advice relating to your status and obligations under the GDPR, as only a lawyer can provide you with legal advice specifically tailored to your situation. Please bear in mind that nothing on this website is intended to provide you with, or should be used as a substitute for, legal advice.
Here are some considerations to help you work towards GDPR compliance:
Alongside other duties, data controllers are required to only use data processors that provide adequate guarantees to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures so that data processing will meet the requirements of the GDPR. Here are some aspects you may want to consider when conducting your assessment of People:
People employs and works with security and privacy professionals to maintain our systems, develop security review processes, build security infrastructure, and implement People's security policies.
Our teams engage with customers, industry stakeholders, and supervisory authorities to shape the People services in a manner that helps customers meet their compliance needs.
Our terms have been updated to reflect GDPR and are available on terms page on this website.
We have verified that our application, People HR, has all of the necessary functionality for compliance with the GDPR. The method we use for deletion and retention of data is acceptable for use under the GDPR.
We promise to maintain a high level of security, and will ensure timely breach reporting to meet all GDPR expectations. To reflect this, we have signed up to Rackspace managed security: https://www.Rackspace.Com/en-gb/managed-security-services This is the gold standard for security management. This service introduces automated analysis of the log files, forensic analysis of breach detection and timely notification and then recovery. We've purchased this on behalf of all of our customers. It's active as of now and we will be contractually assuring our customers of the use of it. It's incumbent upon data controllers to ensure the data processors have the right infrastructure in place to process your data. By purchasing this service, we can assure you we have the technical infrastructure in place which goes above and beyond regulation requirements.
Any data that a customer and its users put into our systems will only be processed in accordance with the customer’s instructions, as described in our previous, as well as our current GDPR-updated data processing agreements.
All of People’s employees are required to sign a confidentiality agreement and complete mandatory confidentiality and privacy trainings, as well as our Code of Conduct training. People’s Code of Conduct outlines expected behaviour with respect to the protection of information.
People always adheres to the requirements of the GDPR legislation to identify sub-processors.
Administrators can delete employee data, via the functionality of the People HR services, at any time during the term of the agreement. We have included data export commitments in our data processing terms since we began trading, and we continue these commitments post-GDPR. We are always working to enhance the robustness of the data export capabilities of the People HR services.
People store data backups for two weeks before the backups are replaced fully and any old data is removed.
How People assists data controllers
People HR can provide an export of customer data, at any time during the term of the agreement. We have included data export commitments in our data processing terms for several years, and we continue these commitments post-GDPR
The People HR Data Protection Officer is Sukhjinder Singh, any questions can be directed to him regarding data protection concerns.
People provides contractual commitments around incident notification. We will inform you of incidents involving your customer data, in line with the data incident terms in our previous, and GDPR-updated, agreements.
Our customers and regulators expect independent verification of security, privacy, and compliance controls. The People platform and service undergo several independent third-party audits on a regular basis to provide this assurance.
Our customers and regulators expect independent verification of security, privacy, and compliance controls. The People platform and service undergo several independent third-party audits on a regular basis to provide this assurance
ISO27001 Accredited
People® has been independently audited, and meets the requirements for BS EN ISO 27001:2013 registration. The scope covers how we manage information security in providing online Human Resource Management software and services to our customers.
Data Protection Registration
People® is registered with the Information Comissioner’s Office (ICO). This means we are contractually committed to delivering our services in compliance with the Data Protection Act (DPA).
ICO Registration Number: ZA185401
Penetration Testing
We commission regular independent penetration testing of our infrastructure, to ensure we keep our system free from vulnerabilities. With many high profile customers in the financial sector, we recognise the need for tight security at a very technical level.
The General Data Protection Regulation is a new EU privacy legislation that has replaced the 95/46/EC Directive on Data Protection of 24 October 1995.
The GDPR became directly applicable in all European Union Member States on 25 May 2018.
Under the GDPR, audit rights must be granted to data controllers in their contracts with data processors. The updated data processing agreements we offer therefore include audit rights for the benefit of our customers.
Our third-party ISO certification can be used by customers to help conduct their risk assessments and help them determine whether appropriate technical and organisational measures are in place.
Refer to security.peoplehr.com website.
Blog articles
Where to start with GDPR
Four things HR will be responsible for after GDPR
GDPR – what have we learned so far?
We have also provided a detailed list of questions and answers which you can use to complete your due diligence, which is also available to download as a Microsoft Word document here: People Due Diligence Questions and answers.docx
What’s the name and contact details of your Data Protection Officer? | Sukhjinder Singh - Sukhjinder.singh@peoplehr.com |
What security accreditations you have? | ISO27001 |
Where is your data centre located? | Slough, UK |
Will the space in your data centre be shared with any other clients? | No, we have a dedicated infrastructure |
What measures are in place to protect the physical security of data centres where our data will be stored? | Data centres are owned and managed by Rackspace |
Who has access to our data? | Our Customer Services team |
Is our data on your servers encrypted at rest? | Yes, we use Vormetric encryption to encrypt your SQL data and all your documents |
Do you have a business continuity plan that is reviewed, tested and updated at least annually? | Yes |
When was the business continuity plan last tested? | October 2017 |
Who within your organisation will have access to the personal data? | Our Customer Services Team |
What user authentication do you use on networks/systems that store/process our data? | Our Customer Services team can access your data via a super admin function. This function can only be accessed from the IP address of our offices.
Access to our serves is also tied down to fixed IP addresses and via 2FA. |
How often are user accounts reviewed for suitability of access levels? | We run a monthly report of who logged in to our severs |
What are your password complexity policies? | We have a password policy as part of our ISO 27001 ISMS |
Do you conduct penetration testing at least annually on all networks hosting our data? | Yes, annually. We have also allow clients to do independent pen tests. |
Could you please describe the physical security that protects our data, including building access and physical server access? | Physical security to our servers is managed by Rackspace. Physical security to our offices is managed by us. |
Do all devices hosting or connecting to our data have AV which is updated at least daily, runs a scheduled scan at least daily, and runs on execution? | Yes, all our laptops use Webroot AV, our servers use Sophos |
What procedures do you have in place to ensure that acceptance criteria for new information systems, upgrades and versions are established and tests are performed prior to roll out? | We have a secure development policy. The development life cycle is the standard Business Requirements Functional Specification Technical Specification Development Units Tests QAUAT Live |
Describe the segregation of duties, including the separation of development, test and operational facilities? | We have separate environments for Development, System Testing, UAT and Live |
Is production data used in test or development environments? | No |
Do you keep and regularly review access, event, error and transaction logs on all networks storing/processing our data? | Yes, we have Rackspace Managed Security provides active threat detection and remediation for advanced persistence threats (APTs) and other cyber-attacks. |
Are all logs protected from deletion and/or amendment? | Yes |
Is access to all logs recorded and monitored? | Yes |
Do you have a formal breach notification process? | Yes |
What is the timelines to notify us of any suspected breach? | We would notify you without delay |
Have you had a security breach within the last 12 months? If so, please describe the incident, effect and outcome. | No |
For what period do you retain our data? | We never delete your data. How long you retain data on our facility is your responsibility |
For what period is our data stored in back-ups? | We have a 14 day backup rotation period |
Where are our backups kept? | Slough, UK |
Is Personal Data encrypted in transit? Explain how | Yes, using https protocol |
Is Personal Data encrypted at rest? Explain how | Yes, using Vormetric encryption which encrypts your data and your documents |
Is any our processed, stored or transferred outside of the EEA? | No |
Is our data passed on to any third parties for processing? | No, however we use Rackspace for hosting our Infrastructure and Mailgun for transmitting our emails . |