GDPR Article 82 — Right to compensation and liability

What this control requires

Ensure data subjects can claim compensation from controllers or processors for damages due to GDPR violations. Controllers and processors are liable unless proven not responsible. Jointly liable parties share compensation, with recourse for proportional recovery per Article 79(2). This control addresses Remedies, Liability and Penalties.

In plain English

Ensure data subjects can claim compensation from controllers or processors for damages due to GDPR violations. In practice, this means you can prove you right controllers-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

GDPR administrative fines reach the greater of €20 million or 4% of global annual turnover. The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) coordinates supervisory-authority enforcement across the EU/EEA, and DPAs publish enforcement decisions citing specific Articles.

What an auditor looks for

A DPA or privacy auditor expects: a Records of Processing Activities (RoPA) entry, a documented lawful basis, evidence the Article's data-subject right is operationalised end-to-end, a named DPO contact (where required), and Article 30 records that match what the front-end actually does.

Within Chapter VIII: Remedies, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Article Article 82) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Policy Management

Docs. Keep each policy in version-controlled Markdown alongside the code that implements it; ship a signed PDF snapshot at each annual review and link the SHA into the SoA.

Operational checklist

• Right. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Data. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: controllers, article, data subjects.

Evidence to collect

• Policy Document. A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.

Signed policy or standard documents the safeguard. Focus: Right to compensation and liability.

Common pitfalls

• Policies that no engineer has read; the version in Confluence drifts from the version that's actually being enforced.

How it maps to other frameworks

Computed from shared tags, control component and key-operation subjects — handy when you are reconciling controls across an audit.

• CIS Controls v8 11.1 — Establish and Maintain a Data Recovery Process
• ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.8.13 — Information backup

Related controls in GDPR

• Article Article 27 — Representatives of controllers or processors not established in the Union
• Article Article 80 — Representation of data subjects
• Article Article 79 — Right to an effective judicial remedy against a controller or processor
• Article Article 3 — Territorial Scope
• Article Article 44 — General principle for transfers
• Article Article 74 — Tasks of the Chair

References

• European Union — GDPR
• Catalogue identifier: Article Article 82

Topics: governance riskbackup recoverypolicy management