Vivacom and the Protection of Corporate Information Directorate Held a Special Training for the Students of Industrial Business Department

For the eighth consecutive year Vivacom Bulgaria and the Corporate Information Protection Directorate, under the heading of its Director Deyan Petkov and with the participation of Dr. Georgy Sredkov, Information Security Manager and Data Protection Officer, organized and held a special training for the students of the Industrial Business Department.

During the specialized presentation Assoc. Prof. Petya Biolcheva and the students were aquainted with the basic regulations and current requirements for compliance with:

• Regulation 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data/GDPR/ and
• Act on Protection of Persons, Reporting Information, or Publicly Disclosing Information about Breaches /Whistleblowers Protection Act/.

The presentation took place in a hall at the headquarters of Vivacom Bulgaria which is part of the United Group, leading telecommunications and media company in South Eastern Europe.

During the training participants received answers to many practical questions about working with personal data, the main requirements and mechanisms to achieve and maintain compliance with the requirements of the European Regulation, the obligations of companies in the role of administrator, processor or joint administrator, the corresponding risks and many other theoretical and practical questions.

Interesting for the students was the information about the requirements for obligated persons under the Whistleblowers Protection Act:

• For establishing an internal channel for the reception, registration and processing of signals;
• For protection of whistleblowers;
• For interaction with the regulatory authority - the Commission for the Protection of Personal Data (CPPD);
• The specifics of the external whistleblower channel established by the CPPD, etc.

A discussion was held on the practical issues related to the implementation of the Whistleblowers Protection Act. It was pointed out that the focus of the legislation is related to acts or omissions detrimental to the public interest and the European Union law. The procedure and conditions for filing and dealing with such reports or publicly disclosed information were also explained durind the discussion.

After the presentation the managers from the Human Resources Directorate of the company presented to the young guests the attractive opportunities of the internship programmes of Vivacom Bulgaria. It was shared Information about the diverse professional fields, including the opportunity for a job adjusted to their academic workload.

According to Assoc. Prof. Biolcheva the impelemented training is extremely valuable. It not only gives informations for students about their rights regarding the protection of personal data as European citizens but also enriches their professional CV with practical knowledge about the application of the basic requirements for lawful processing of personal data on the one hand, and awareness of the new regulation for the protection of whistleblowers.