Elevating Data Protection Awareness for Swiss Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) 

On May 13^th, 2024, the 5th Digital Trust Day held by our Competence Center took place in Basel. Over 100 participants including students and professionals from different industries attended to it and participated in various workshops, which included one dedicated to the MECyS project and especially to the data protection education for micro-enterprises in Switzerland. 

This workshop “Practice over Paragraphs” was hosted by Prof. Dr. Bettina Schneider and Ilya Misyura. Main objectives were: 

• To raise awareness on data protection and bring the understanding if data protection is relevant to participants. Focus area of discussion was Switzerland since its revised Federal Act on Data Protection is still rather new. 
• To assess participants’ level of data protection compliance. For this, a web-based tool was developed. After a short questionnaire, participants were provided with general guidance that can help to structure the organization’s data protection compliance process. 
• To provide tips and tools that can help in reaching a profound data protection level inside a company. Participants received a comprehensive data protection roadmap and a list of useful documents and templates gathered by our team. 

The feedback from the participants was very positive. Attendees appreciated the short questionnaire and the immediate assessment of whether the company is well positioned in terms of data protection. They even suggested allocating more time – 90 instead of 45 minutes – to increase the level of understanding and time for questions. All in all, the feedback received emphasizes the interest in data protection and its high relevance for Swiss MSEs. 

You can download slides for this workshop by clicking this link.