Data Protection Audit Services

Protect your business, ensure compliance, and build trust with a comprehensive Data Protection Audit from Datahub Consulting.

Partner With Datahub Consulting to Safeguard Your Business

In today’s data-driven world, safeguarding personal and sensitive information is not optional, it’s a legal and ethical necessity. For any business from small startup to large enterprise data is one of your most valuable assets, also with cyber threats one of your biggest risks.
At Datahub Consulting, we help organisations understand the vulnerabilities and risks to their data and with our data engineering expertise help implement actions to minimise the risks and stay compliant, secure, and competitive.
Our Data Protection Audit service provides a systematic review of your data handling practices to ensure compliance with global data protection regulations and data governance standards.
Our Data Protection Audit service is designed to give organisation the security and confidence with the rising global cyber security threats.

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Why Your Business Needs a Data Protection Audit

A Data Protection Audit is a comprehensive, independent review of how your organisation collects, stores, uses, and shares personal and sensitive data. It’s not just about ticking compliance boxes, it’s about identifying risks, improving processes, and demonstrating accountability to customers, partners, and regulators.

  • Regulatory Compliance
    Avoid costly fines and reputational damage by meeting GDPR and other privacy laws.
  • Risk Mitigation
    Identify vulnerabilities in data storage, processing, and sharing before they become breaches.
  • Operational Efficiency
    Streamline data governance and improve accountability across your organisation.

What's included in the audit

The audit consists of 266 controls covering the 12 sections. The controls measure the full scope of a business’s data protection capabilities.

Independent Audit

Unbiased Review of your Data protection Compliance

Initial Planning Workshop

Prior to the audit we will initially introduce ourselves to your team, answer any questions, and set the scope of the audit.

Documents and Procedures

A review of all of your data protection policies, procedures, schedules, registers, and logs.

Travels to your Head Offices

Some audit companies conduct the audit remotely where documents and questionnaires are completed and set back. We opt to come to your offices where we physically meet your team, see and test the controls.

Comprehensive Audit

Whilst at your offices we conduct a comprehensive audit comprising of 266 controls measured.

Action Plan

An action plan in plain English is created to address the gaps identified and to minimise any risks

Audit Report

Document in plain English detailing the 12 core sections of the audit, each sections with a score and reason behind the score. The audit report then gives an overall audit score taking all the controls and measures into consideration.

Gap Analysis

Understand areas where you are not compliant and need to improve.

Optional Debrief Workshop

We can arrange a final debrief of the audit with your leadership team where we talk through the key areas of the audits and observations. This gives the customer a chance to ask questions to the Datahub team.

What Our Data Protection Audit Covers

Our audits are tailored to your industry and regulatory requirements. Key areas include:

  • Data Mapping & Flow Analysis: Understand where personal data resides and how it moves across systems.
  • Policy & Procedure Review: Evaluate your privacy policies, consent mechanisms, and retention schedules.
  • Technical Safeguards: Assess encryption, access controls, and security configurations.
  • Third-Party Risk Assessment: Review vendor compliance and contractual obligations.
  • Compliance Gap Analysis: Identify gaps against GDPR, ISO 27001, and other frameworks.

Benefits of Partnering with Datahub Consulting

  • Global Expertise
    Serving clients across the UK, Europe, Middle East, Canada, and Africa.
  • Industry-Specific Knowledge
    Audits tailored for sectors like Aviation, Finance, Healthcare, Retail, and Energy.
  • Actionable Insights
    Clear recommendations and a roadmap for compliance improvement.
  • Integration of the EU AI Act
    The audits can assess processes that use personal information with artificial intelligence.

How It Works

  • Initial Workshop
    The workshop is usually a remote session, so borders are not an issue. The duration can be from 1 hour to 4 hours depending on the size of your organisation and the number of processes you have that include personal information. This workshop allows Datahub to:

    • Meet your team,
    • Understand your organisation structure,
    • Understand the processes that use personal information,
    • Understand your compliance objectives,
    • Answer any initial questions that you may have
  • Comprehensive Audit
    Review policies, logs, processes, technical and organisational security controls.
  • Detailed Report
    Receive a full compliance assessment with prioritised action plan.
  • Remediation Support
    Datahub can either implement all the actions necessary for compliance, or we can provide guidance to internal compliance teams to fulfil the actions.

Audit Report

Customer receive the audit report within 10 days of the audit completion. The report is written in plain English so can be read by the leadership team that don’t have any knowledge of data protection laws. As all the 266 controls are not equally weighted then Datahub has created an algorithm to accurately score the audit taking into consideration then individual control and it’s weighting. Customer will receive a report that outlines the scope of the audit, each of the 12 core sections are scored so customers know details where they exceeded, and where they may have fallen short. The the report will include a final overall score. There are 6 grades for the audit

  • Outstanding
  • Very Good
  • Satisfactory
  • Needs Improvement
  • Unsatisfactory
  • Significant Defects

How to Prepare for an Audit

To ensure that the audit runs smooth we provide in advance information on how to prepare. This will also be discussed with your auditor in more detail in the initial audit workshop.

  • Initially contact Datahub Consulting and book your on-site audit. We can arrange it for 2-3 months in advance.
  • Have a document that lists all the processes that include personal information. This is called a Record of Processing Activity (ROPA).
  • With the support of Datahub define the scope of the audit. 
  • Make sure that your policy documents and procedures are up to date.
  • Have an Incident Response strategy in place.
  • Ensure that you have a training strategy for staff.
  • Make sure that you understand the lawful processing reason. For all processes you are required to have a lawful reason. This could be Consent, Contractual, Legal obligation, Vital interests, Public task, Legitimate interests. Please note, there are some data protection laws that don't recognise Legitimate interest as a lawful reason. 
  • Review your security controls. This would also involve the IT team. Look at the security of data on servers or the cloud. Security of personal machines. Also look at physical security measures of the building, like door access controls, cameras, position of workstations etc.
  • Have contracts in place with data protection clauses where you share personal information with vendors and partners.

Ready to Strengthen Your Data Protection?

One partner. Your Data Protection Services....

Contact us today to schedule your Data Protection Audit and ensure your business meets the highest standards of privacy and security.

Talk to Our Experts

Download a copy of our Data Protection Audit information sheet.

Have a read of our article where we discuss the details of the audit process and deliverables.

Frequently Asked Questions

While both audits aim to protect an organisation’s information, they focus on different aspects.

Data Protection Audit

With a data protection audit it looks at the controls relating to the collection, storing, and sharing of the data it’s self. Including the procedures, policies, logging, and monitoring the safeguards in place. Such as:

    • Legal basis for processing personal information.
    • Data subject rights (access, erasure, portability etc).
    • Retention of data.
    • Data breach strategy.

Security Audit

A security audit focuses on the systems, cyber threats,  and system architecture & security.

Typically a security audit would include (but not limited too):

  • Network security (firewalls, intrusion detection)
  • Access controls and authentication.
  • Encryption and backup strategies.
  • Vulnerability assessments and patch management.

The audit will be between 8-10 days of work. Approx 50% will be from the Datahub offices and the other 50% will be on site at the customers offices.

The audit is split into four parts:

  • The pre-assessment will take approx 2 days and will be conducted from the Datahub offices
  • The audit will be on site at the customers offices and will take between 3-5 days
  • The review is 1 day in duration. In the review we tie up any loose ends and a second auditor reviews the audit information to ensure that the auditor has been fair, accurate, and complete audit.
  • Creation of the audit report will be 2 days. This takes place from the Datahub offices.

For more detailed information on this please have a read of our article: https://www.datahubconsulting.co.uk/articles/data-protection-audit/

Yes, audits can be conducted internally by your compliance team, but there are pros and cons to this. Our customers that have internal compliance teams like to have an independent assessment of the  data protection framework. Also the auditor needs to have the knowledge of the applicable data protection law but also have the technical understanding to speak with the IT team.

The EU Artificial Intelligence Act is a new law that sets clear rules for how AI can be developed and used across Europe. It aims to make AI safe, transparent, and respectful of people’s rights. The Act uses a risk-based approach that bans harmful uses, applying strict requirements to high-risk systems (like those used in healthcare or hiring), and requiring transparency for tools such as chatbots and deepfakes.

Its goal is to protect individuals while encouraging innovation and trust in AI technologies.

Generally we would recommend an audit every 2 years. This is to ensure that new processes adhere to the data protection laws, any changes to current processes don’t introduce any risks, and to manage and changes to the data protection laws.

No, data protection audits are not mandatory but an organisation needs to prove compliance with any applicable data protection law. The ideal way to do this is to have an audit carried out by an external organisation.

No, audits are recommended for all organisations that process the personal information of data subjects, regardless of size.

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We do not employ salespeople; our team are all experienced technical specialists that can talk you through any of our services.

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