Exam CIPP-E topic 1 question 228 discussion

SCENARIO -

Please use the following to answer the next question:

Jane starts her new role as a Data Protection Officer (DPO) at a Malta-based company that allows anyone to buy and sell cryptocurrencies via its online platform. The company stores and processes the personal data of its customers in a dedicated data center located in Malta (EU).

People wishing to trade cryptocurrencies are required to open an online account on the platform. They then must successfully pass a Know Your Customer (KYC) due diligence procedure aimed at preventing money laundering and ensuring compliance with applicable financial regulations.

The non-European customers are also required to waive all their GDPR rights by reading a disclaimer written in bold and ticking a checkbox on a separate page in order to get their account approved on the platform.

All customers must likewise accept the terms of service of the platform. The terms of service also include a privacy policy section, saying, among other things, that if a customer fails the KYC process, its KYC data will be automatically shared with the national anti-money laundering agency.

The KYC procedure requires customers to answer many questions, including whether they have any criminal convictions, whether they use recreational drugs or have problems with alcohol, and whether they have a terminal illness. While providing this data, customers see a conspicuous message saying that this data is meant only to prevent fraud and account takeover, and will be never shared with private third parties.

The company regularly conducts external security testing of its online systems by independent cybersecurity companies from the EU. At the final stage of testing, the company provides cybersecurity assessors with access to its central database to review security permissions, roles and policies. Personal data in the database is encrypted; however, cybersecurity assessors usually have access to the decryption keys obtained while running initial security testing. The assessors must strictly follow the guidelines imposed by the company during the entire testing and auditing process.

All customer data, including trading activities and all internal communications with technical support, are permanently stored in a secured AWS S3 Glacier cloud data storage, located in Ireland, for backup and compliance purposes. The data is securely transferred to the cloud and then is properly encrypted while at rest by using AWS-native encryption mechanisms. These mechanisms give AWS the necessary technical means to encrypt and decrypt the data when such is required by the company. There is no data processing agreement between AWS and the company.


Are the cybersecurity assessors required to sign a data processing agreement with the company in order to comply with the GDPR?