SMOOTH is a leading European project that will help SMEs (small and medium-sized businesses) adapt to the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force on May 25th and focuses on protecting the citizens’ privacy with common rules throughout the European Union.
In this sense, the main objective of the project is “to bring small and medium-sized companies with tools to adapt to the new regulations, as many SMEs do not have the resources of training to adapt to the new regulation and ignore their obligations in this regard” explains Rosa Araujo, SMOOTH’s project coordinator from Eurecat.
To do this, the project has the participation of two European data protection authorities and various associations of SMEs and will publish an interactive an online handbook in the form of a mobile and web application specifically aimed at small and medium-sized businesses.
In addition, a cloud platform combining advanced technology in the area of machine learning, text mining, data mining and web and mobile apps will be developed to generate customized reports on the most critical aspects of the new law for the companies that request it.
Likewise, SMOOTH will provide SMEs with advanced tools to solve the issues detected to be improved. The final goal, in the words of Araujo, is “to contribute to respect citizens’ privacy rights as well as to avoid that micro SMEs are penalized for not complying with the new regulation, which contemplates sanctions of up to 4 per one hundred of their annual income”.
SMOOTH consortium is comprised of twelve partners from six European countries (Spain, Belgium, United Kingdom, Poland, Latvia and France), gathering GDPR experts, representatives of European micro SMEs, large enterprises, innovation and research institutions, an SME and a standardization body.