When you hear GDPR, it can bring on a shiver. The fines alone—up to €20 million or 4% of global revenue—are enough to make any organization sit up straight. But where do those fines really come from? What is the biggest threat to your company’s data security?
The answer might surprise you.
When many people think of data breaches, they imagine something cinematic—a sophisticated cyberattack from a shadowy group of hackers. In reality, the biggest threat is far closer to home.
Over 80% of GDPR-related breaches don’t begin with criminals. Instead, they start with a simple, accidental slip-up by someone just doing their job. European data authorities confirm this repeatedly: the problem is not usually malicious outsiders, but ordinary people making small mistakes.
This leads to a critical point: no matter how much you invest in firewalls or legal policies, if your team is unaware or untrained, you still have a serious vulnerability. GDPR is not simply a technology problem—it is a people problem.
These errors are not complex sabotage attempts. They are everyday mishaps that could happen to anyone:
The number one most common GDPR breach? Accidentally emailing personal data to the wrong person. One misclick may seem harmless, but it can lead to devastating consequences. For example, a European bank was fined nearly €1 million when an employee sent documents to the wrong recipient.
As the Danish Data Protection Authority explains: “One small wrong click can cause an entire security breach.”
This may sound worrying, but here is the positive side: the same people who represent the biggest risk can also become your strongest defense.
The key is to stop viewing employees as weak links. They are, in fact, your frontline protection. A trained, aware employee acts as a human firewall—spotting suspicious emails, questioning unusual data requests, and preventing small mistakes from becoming major breaches.
So how do you turn employees into a security asset? Through effective, ongoing training. Regulators such as the UK’s ICO make it clear: staff training is a fundamental safeguard. After a breach, one of the first questions regulators ask is, “Tell us about your staff training.”
A strong program should include:
The goal is not simply memorizing rules but changing habits—transforming potential weak points into the strongest part of your data protection chain.
Training is vital, but it is only part of the solution. To truly protect your organization, you need to establish a culture of privacy.
This means data protection is no longer a compliance checkbox but a core organizational value. From interns to executives, everyone views privacy as second nature.
The benefits are significant:
When leadership sets the tone, and employees make privacy-conscious choices daily, compliance becomes more than an obligation—it becomes a competitive advantage.
Human error may be the number one cause of GDPR breaches, but it does not have to remain that way. The real question for your organization is not “Are my people a risk?” but rather:
“What am I doing to turn them into my strongest defense?”