Catering Scotland

Despite GDPR legislation having come into effect six months ago, the majority of UK hospitality businesses are now risking penalties by failing to fully adhere to the rules, with almost half of hospitality operators failing to wipe the memory function off redundant IT equipment before disposal.

According to a survey of over 1,000 UK hospitality workers in full- or part-time employment, 45% had failed to wipe the data from IT equipment they disposed of in the two months following GDPR.

More worrying still, a shocking 97% of staff admitted they wouldn’t know who to approach within their company to correctly dispose of old or unusable equipment.

An astonishing 97% of hospitality businesses surveyed did not have an official protocol for disposing of obsolete IT equipment

According to the data, hospitality businesses are one of the industries most likely not to wipe existing data off old IT equipment.

Matt Royle, marketing director at the IT firm Probrand.co.uk that conducted the research, said: ‘Given the amount of publicity around GDPR it seems virtually impossible to misunderstand the basics of what is required for compliance. It is startling to discover just how many businesses within the hospitality sector that are failing to implement some of the simplest data protection practices.

‘With fines involved in a GDPR breach potentially running into millions of pounds – not to mention reputational damage, customer trust and loyalty – it is clear that more needs to be done to ensure that all businesses have a disposal procedure in place to avoid inadvertently leaking sensitive.data.’

The top 10 industries which are most guilty of not clearing the memory of IT equipment before it is disposed of:

•  Transportation – 72%
•  Sales and marketing – 62%
•  Manufacturing – 59%
•  Utilities – 58%
•  Retail – 57%
•  Education – 54%
•  Leisure and travel – 49%
•  Healthcare and hospitality – 45%
•  Trades / administration – 44%
•  Information and communication – 39%