Why Ticketcounter works with a Data Protection Officer

Data security is an important issue in this day and age within the business operations of any company. Virtually every party that does business online collects data from consumers to deliver products or services, improve business processes or do marketing. This is privacy-sensitive data that, if misused or, worse, ends up in the wrong hands, can cause a lot of damage.

An enormous responsibility

Processing this data comes with a huge responsibility. Not only do you have to deal with complex laws and regulations on how you can use the data, but it also has to be stored responsibly and securely. Failure to do so can lead to (large) fines and/or damage to reputation and trust.

Ticketcounter also collects a large amount of data daily on behalf of its partners. From name and address details needed to register the visitor to payment details of all transactions. We treat this data with the utmost respect and have prioritized data security within the company. To keep ourselves sharp in this respect, Ticketcounter has appointed an external Data Protection Officer.

Why a Data Protection Officer?

A Data Protection Officer (DPO) supervises that the General Data Protection Regulation (AVG) is complied with within a company. The AVG is the implementation standard in the Netherlands, of the European GDPR that standardizes the rules for the processing of personal data by private companies and public authorities throughout the European Union and serves to ensure the protection of personal data within the Union. Government agencies and public organizations, as well as companies that track individuals, map activities or collect special personal data on a large scale are required to appoint an FG. Other parties may do so voluntarily. As an independent party within the company, the FG should be concerned with data security in the broadest sense of the word; The FG tests whether all activities from product development to marketing meet the requirements of the AVG (in the Netherlands) and issues binding advice if this is not the case. The DPO has a central role within the organization and should be easily accessible, without intervention, to persons within and outside the organization and is therefore always involved in communication with the Dutch Data Protection Authority.

External FG

As you can imagine, the role of the DPO requires specialist knowledge of national and European privacy laws and regulations on data protection, an understanding of the data processing that the organization performs and an understanding of IT and information security. For us as Ticketcounter, a reason to outsource this function to Bridge4IT in Germany. Bridge4IT is an authority on data protection and data forensics, so they know exactly what to focus on to keep us on our toes. In doing so, they ensure that they are constantly kept up to date with the most current laws and regulations and topics in the privacy and data protection field. In this way, our awareness in the field of data security is also increased again and again. Finally, we believe that it is always better to have an external party look at our systems to be able to guarantee true partiality.

But why a German party?

We also serve several partners in Germany with the Ticketcounter platform. We are therefore obliged to confirm ourselves with German data protection legislation. And since we have the ambition to offer our services in other European countries as well, having a partner who is aware of the guidelines in all countries in the EU is a huge advantage. The German law implementing the European GDPR, the DSGVO, is a lot stricter than the Dutch AVG and the regulations in many other European countries. By complying with this, we are setting the highest standards for our implementation in the area of data protection. Everything to ensure that your visitor's data is and remains as safe as possible.