Premier League聽football club West Ham United has partnered with leading cyber security consultancy聽Foregenix to prepare for the聽upcoming GDPR鈥檚 new data privacy rules.
The project will include a number of聽cyber security initiatives and build on the work carried out as part of the club鈥檚 move to their new London Stadium home.
Mike Bohndiek, head of IT at West Ham, has said the partnership will benefit both fans and employees alike.
“Football clubs like West Ham United maintain a huge amount of personally identifiable information data that must be used and protected in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes into force next year,” he said.
“Ticketing, fan membership, hospitality and player medical data are just a few examples where GDPR will have an impact.
鈥淲ith less than a year before it becomes law, it is important that we are prepared for what is widely acknowledged as a long overdue revamp of the Data Protection Act.
“We chose Foregenix because they have a long pedigree in payment security and compliance.
鈥淲ith the Payment Industry Card Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) and GDPR inextricably linked in certain areas it makes sense to use someone who can optimize our efforts to comply with both requirements.鈥�
Richard Jones, business development manager at Foregenix, said: 鈥淭he recent cyber-attacks that have made the news clearly demonstrate that organisations of all sizes can be vulnerable targets.
鈥淚ndeed there are manyparallels between cyber security compliance and the beautiful game. Both require a sound defence and need to be played according to the rules.鈥�
Benj Hosack, chief commercial officer of Foregenix, said: 鈥淲e鈥檙e pleased to be working with West Ham to safeguard its data for players, staff and fans and let the only defence the club has to worry about be on the pitch and not online.鈥�
The GDPR will officially replace the Data Protection Act聽as of聽May 2018. Penalties for non-compliance with the GDPR are up to 4 per cent of annual global turnover or up to 鈧�20million, whichever is greater.