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Quebec’s Law 25: What you need to know

By Mindsec Staff 1 March, 2024

Requiring lengthy and complicated compliance processes and with potential fines in the millions of dollars, Law 25 is something businesses dealing with Quebecers’ personal information can no longer ignore.  Here’s what you need to know to make sure you aren’t found to be noncompliant.

 

What is Law 25?

Formerly known as Bill 64, Law 25 is a complete overhaul of Quebec’s privacy legislation and has major consequences for companies doing business in Quebec or handling the personal information of Quebec residents – like names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, payment information, and more.

In today’s business operations landscape, the handling of personal data has become commonplace. The provisions of Law 25 apply to any company that handles Quebecers’ data no matter where they are located.  These strict provisions include risk assessments, data breach notifications, enhanced consent, and cybersecurity controls.  Surprisingly, even a smoked meat sandwich deli in Old Montreal is not exempt!

With the lion’s share of obligations already in effect since September 2023, and a remaining few taking effect in September 2024, the time to act is now.

 

Why Compliance Matters

Are you the CEO of your business? Law 25 puts you in the hot seat by default as the CEO may be the one held responsible for the business’ failure to comply.

Aside from defaulting responsibility to the CEO, your business may incur fines as high as $25 million or 4% of the previous year’s worldwide revenue!

It is therefore critical that executives take real steps to comply with the new obligations and avoid penalties by appointing a Data Protection Officer to ensure that Quebecers’ personal data is protected according to Law 25’s requirements.

Becoming Law 25 compliant isn’t exactly an easy process either. It can take companies months, even a year, to become compliant, meaning a potential drain on revenue and resources. All the more reason to make becoming Law 25 compliant a priority today.

 

Steps to Achieving Compliance:

1. Gap Analysis

Start by evaluating your organization’s current privacy and security posture and practices against Law 25’s requirements. This involves reviewing existing policies, procedures, controls, privacy, and security measures in place. Then identify and document areas where your business falls short of meeting the specified compliance requirements.

 

2. Risk Assessment

Prioritization is going to be key for an efficient compliance journey. Based on the compliance gaps you have identified, prioritize them based on their severity and potential impact.

At the minimum, your organization should implement two new processes to their risk assessments in consultation with your DPO:

  • Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA)
  • Incident Risk Assessment (IRA)

 

3. Build a Remediation Work Plan

Formulate action plans to address each compliance gap. This may involve updating privacy policies, nominating a DPO, implementing new controls for individual rights management and breach notifications, or enhancing security measures to ensure compliance.

The key here is to allocate your resources effectively. The compliance journey can be time consuming for your team members and often results in business interruptions and bottlenecks. Don’t let it hurt your bottom-line unnecessarily.

 

4. Maintain Continuous Compliance

Implement a monitoring mechanism to track progress and regularly assess and report on the status of compliance efforts. Remember, Law 25 isn’t a one-time thing. You can’t set it and forget it. Law 25 requires your business to be compliant at all times.

 

Simplifying Law 25 Compliance

Ensuring Law 25 compliance can be a complex, time-consuming, and costly process for most companies, but it doesn’t have to be!

Meet Mindsec – your trusted partner along every step of your Law 25 compliance journey. We started Mindsec because we were those responsible for cybersecurity and compliance at our previous jobs. We know how complicated, frustrating, and lengthy these processes can be and we found a way to make it simpler!

Mindsec can save your business up to 70% of Law 25 compliance costs. We ensure a quick and efficient process that can take you from zero to hero in 3-4 months. Just last month we completed a similar process that only started mid-September 2023.

Our offering includes software and compliance specialist services in both English and French. By taking care of the full cycle and supporting all elements of the law, we radically cut down the internal resources you would need to allocate.

If your business falls under Law 25’s scope, now is the time to consider automation with Mindsec. Let us help you:

  • Eliminate costs and complexity with automated risk assessments and policy builders.
  • Gain peace-of-mind with pre-mapped validated security and privacy controls.
  • Save time and build trust quickly with automated evidence collection.
  • Accelerate business confidence and prove continuous compliance with real-time monitoring dashboards.

Enjoy the benefits of having your Law 25 compliance streamlined by our security and compliance gurus so you don’t have to be one.

Let us take care of your Law 25 compliance so that it’s built to last.

Mindsec is committed to ensuring you meet compliance requirements, boost sales, shorten cycles, and instill unwavering confidence in your customers.

Schedule a chat with us here to dive into your Law 25 needs.

Mindsec Staff

Mindsec staff