Gemalto hunts for partners for its encryption solutions as GDPR approaches

Security vendor says demand for encryption has increased significantly as GDPR deadline gets closer

Security vendor Gemalto is searching for partners to sell its authentication and encryption solutions amid growing demand from customers, with GDPR less than two years away.

The EU's General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) will require organisations to encrypt all personal data on their systems. If companies fail to comply with the regulations, they can be fined up to €10m (£8.4m) or two per cent of their annual worldwide turnover, whichever is greater.

Organisations could receive fines of up to €20m or four per cent of their annual worldwide turnover for the most serious data protection breaches.

With it set to come into force on 25 May 2018, Phil Holmes, UK channel director at Gemalto, said the vendor is seeing an increase in the number of customer enquiries about encryption.

"GDPR and these huge high-profile data breaches we have been seeing have made organisations start to understand that they need to apply strong encryption and have a joined-up approach to encryption and key management," he said.

"There are only two budget cycles from now until GDPR becomes a reality. So we have seen a lot of enquiries from end users who have realised they need to start looking at encryption and start budgeting for encryption to meet GDPR when it comes in."

Holmes said this provides an opportunity for Gemalto's existing partners to go back to their customer bases and pitch encryption, as he said most organisations are not currently using encryption.

The vendor was a direct business until it acquired two-factor authentication vendor Aladdin six years ago. Gemalto - under its previous name SafeNet - then took on Aladdin's channel and opened up its whole product line to that channel.

Gemalto is also looking for between 10 and 15 new partners over the rest of the year, to concentrate on data encryption.

"We are not recruiting heavily, but recruiting sensibly," explained Holmes. "We don't want to over-distribute our solutions. We are looking for value-add resellers who have technical resources. With our solutions there are always services that are required for implementation training.

"We need partners that are able to take advantage of information services and technical work, but also partners that are consultative. We are not selling licences, we are selling solutions to a real problem at the moment."

MTI has been a partner with Gemalto for around eight years, and its services director Andrew Tang (pictured) said that he has noticed the increased demand for the encryption products Gemalto provides in the run-up to GDPR.

"We have had a couple of organisations in the finance industry that have started asking us about how we can help them with their GDPR strategy. There are organisations out there that are on the ball, but more companies were in limbo because of the referendum," he said.

"People forget that when you look at all the different options, whether it's the Norway, Switzerland, Canada or Turkey models, they all have to adhere to EU regulation, which means GDPR in some fashion or another. It is still about education and evangelisation at the minute."

Exclusive Networks has been a distributor for Gemalto since 2008, having originally signed with Aladdin before the acquisition.

Stuart Clark, vendor alliances director at Exclusive, said: "I think the legislation around GDPR is really driving the market and raising awareness in the end-user and reseller communities that it is a real problem. Gemalto's message is all about securing the breach itself. Everything around data protection in the channel is really on the increase."