GDPR: Processing Purposes

The answer to the survey: Is it mandatory to determine the purpose of processing to maintain your record?

During a survey conducted on 30 November on our LinkedIn page, we asked you whether it is mandatory to determine the purpose of processing to maintain your record.

You did brilliantly! Out of 205 voters, 97% of you voted yes. This is indeed the correct answer, it is mandatory.

Indeed, the GDPR requires that the company determines the purpose of each of its data processing operations before implementing them. This ensures the lawfulness and legitimacy of the processing.

According to CNIL: "Data is collected for a specific and legitimate purpose and is not subsequently processed in a manner incompatible with that initial objective. This principle of purpose limitation restricts how the controller may use or reuse such data in the future."

Obligations for defining the purposes of data processing

The purpose of the processing must be determined from the design of the project that leads to processing personal data. You must then record this purpose in your record of processing activities. It must meet 4 criteria communicated by CNIL:

1. The purpose must be specific, legitimate and explicit. The objective pursued by the processing must be clear and understandable by all and in line with your company's activities.

2. The purpose must be respected, meaning that the processing cannot be used for purposes other than those defined in advance.

3. The data used must be necessary for the company's activities. The purpose of the processing must be relevant to your company's obligations.

4. The purpose of data processing will determine the retention period, which will be more or less long.

Easily identify your processing purposes with Data Comply One (formerly Mission RGPD)

Are you struggling to identify your purposes? Don't you have time to think about and concretely set up your record of processing activities? Or do you lack the resources to be compliant?

With Data Comply One (formerly Mission RGPD), you can easily identify the purposes and sub-purposes of your processing. Thanks to our pre-filled templates, you will find ready-to-use drafting suggestions for

purposes and sub-purposes. You can obviously modify them if necessary and even create your own templates.

Don't waste any more time, it's so simple!