April

Spain's Council of Ministers (La Moncloa) has passed the Personal Data Protection Draft Act (Draft) for conformance to the GDPR.

The Spanish state respects and reproduces in this draft the text of the GDPR, introducing some specifications on several aspects, to include the age for consent is lowered to 13 years old, consent is excluded as the sole basis for making especially-protected data processing legitimate, specific regulations for personal data processing, and specifics law infringements, in particular, with very grave infringements, fines could total up to 4 percent of a company 's total worldwide annual turnover.

Organizations are "sleepwalking towards a GDPR abyss", a new report warns, with 60 percent of companies saying they are unprepared for the EU's GDPR with less than four months until implementation.

The report from software technology firm Senzing said that 60 percent of UK organizations were not yet "GDPR ready", while 24 percent were deemed "GDPR at risk".

According to the report, companies could be forced to spend eight hours a day, or 172 hours a month, on data searches after the implementation of the GDPR, with 39 percent of UK-based directors saying they were concerned about their ability to be compliant. More than one in 10 of UK companies said they were not confident they knew where their data was housed, while 12 percent reported that they had not accounted for all databases. 

A job candidate was convicted of fraud after claiming on his resume that he had performed more than 50 specialist surgeries.

He was named specialist colorectal surgeon at Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, yet only had performed six surgeries. Sudip Sarker denied lying to get the role, saying he had taken a 'guesstimate' at how many procedures he had performed. He was suspended after it became clear he could not fulfill the job specifications.

For hiring managers, the dangers of taking on candidates who are found unsuitable for the position, or have lies on their resume, can be damaging for a business.