Security, Compliance and Success with Effective Data Privacy Management

Modern business operations today are made more difficult by data privacy requirements and laws due to the stringent use and management of personal data regulations. The adoption of rigorous data privacy regulations reflects the present scenario, leading to heightened reactions among various institutions.

The growing cyberattacks targeting sensitive data have also drawn organizations attention to improve data security and compliance. As a result, organizations must be diligent in their handling of sensitive data and ensure that they are in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. A data privacy program in place and appropriate technological measures can protect both businesses and their customers, influencing business performance.

How Data Privacy can Impact Business Outcomes

Compliance with data protection laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is at the heart of data privacy, a subset of data protection. Data privacy assures the proper handling and security of sensitive data inside an organization as it centers around these three key questions:

• What data is being collected?
• Who has access to the data?
• How is the data being used?

Inadequate data privacy measures may lead to non-compliance and data breach incidents, exposing organizations to the following consequences:

1. Hefty Costs: Companies that don't comply risk hefty penalties of up to 4% of their worldwide sales. Without proper detection and remediation technologies, companies may also spend more time and money on responding to threats and recovering from a data breach (IBM and Ponemon institute, 2022)¹.
2. Reputational loss: Nearly nine in ten people (87%) stated they would not do business with an organization because of security concerns. 71% of respondents said they would no longer do business with an organization that disclosed private information without first obtaining consent². When customers lose faith in a business, it may hurt its bottom line even more than a hefty punishment.
3. Business secrets leaked: Data privacy laws do not address this problem, but it might cause companies to lose their edge in the market. In order to avoid missing out on lucrative prospects stemming from initiatives like the development of groundbreaking new products, businesses must take precautions to protect their trade secrets.

Non-compliance with data privacy laws in more and more jurisdictions will also restrict an organization's potential customer base. A data privacy program can thus help organizations fulfill their legal responsibility to operate lawfully in all jurisdictions, protect their sensitive data and reputation, which enable them to grow their business and gain benefits from their data usage and compliance.

A data privacy program, however, may need the coordinated efforts of several teams across an organization to complete a number of specific objectives. Manual procedures in this program are also inefficient and prone to mistakes, putting businesses at risk of failing to meet regulatory requirements. Organizations should thus embrace more advanced and automated privacy management solutions to facilitate the workflows of their data privacy programs.

Essential Data Privacy Management for Compliance

According to Gartner, "privacy management" refers to either a framework or a technology that helps businesses evaluate their data processing operations for compliance with data privacy laws. With the use of data privacy management, organizations can leverage a comprehensive approach that includes both technical solutions and organizational policies to streamline the process of handling sensitive data and prevent data breaches.

Here are the key tasks of data privacy management to aid in regulatory compliance and data security:

• Conducting regular privacy risk assessments: identifying potential privacy risks, evaluating their likelihood and impact, and implementing measures to mitigate or eliminate them.
• Developing and implementing privacy policies: ensuring that employees and stakeholders understand the organization's privacy practices and expectations.
• Responding to data breaches: ensuring a plan in place to quickly and effectively respond to any breach, including identifying the cause of the breach, containing the damage, and notifying affected parties.

Managing data efficiently in a day of constantly shifting regulations and widespread dispersion of more sensitive information necessitates modern data privacy management tools as they can automatically collect, identify, and control access to data stored in several locations. Data privacy management tools can help businesses conduct privacy impact assessments, verify processing operations against requirements from privacy legislation, and keep tabs on events that result in unlawful disclosures of personal data (investigating, correcting, and reporting).

Data privacy management tools can also facilitate mechanisms for cross-departmental collaboration on customer or DSR/DSAR requests for data access, modification, or deletion from sources like IT departments. Organizations can leverage data privacy management solutions to automate tedious operations, increase efficiency and transparency, and make use of their reporting capabilities for compliance.

Top Features for Effective Data Privacy Management Solutions

Businesses cannot afford the disastrous consequences of a data breach and non-compliance. Between numerous data privacy laws and the growing complexity and volume of their data resources, organizations need to implement effective data privacy management solutions to enable them to comply with various data privacy laws, improve data security, or even save more time for business-critical tasks.

Compliance with various laws and standards necessitates the use of a data privacy management software solution to ensure the proper handling of sensitive data collected by an organization. Organizations should consider the following elements when investing in such solutions that successfully resolve data privacy issues while driving business values:

The solution should

• Have automated discovery and classification features for consistent, accurate, and reliable sensitive data monitoring.
• Track down any file, no matter its format, wherever in their local or remote networks or in the cloud. This can ensure the protection for every possible endpoint, from desktop computers to laptops used in remote or onsite working site.
• Allow for compliance with various privacy standards; providing more clarity to fulfill a wide range of internal and external regulatory requirements.
• Introduce automation in the data privacy program's workflow from discovery to remediation, which may greatly increase its effectiveness and efficiency.  
• Enable data access controls, which can help ensure that only authorized users are able to access sensitive data.
• Provide real-time monitoring and alerting to help organizations stay one step ahead of potential threats and take proactive measures to protect their sensitive data.
• Provide an intuitive control panel with graphical data interpretation for instantaneous status recognition.
• Be cost-effective, which can be achieved by consolidating as many relevant data privacy management resources as possible into a single package.

Organizations need a robust data privacy program to achieve compliance, strengthen security, and prevent data breaches that can drive success in the long run. Deploying data privacy management solutions can help businesses ease the strain of handling sensitive data across their systems. Organizations should consider the effective functions of data privacy management solutions that can align with their needs and help them stay ahead of privacy risks.

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References:

1. IBM and Ponemon Institute. (2022). Cost of a Data Breach Report.
2. McKinsey & Company. (2020). The consumer-data opportunity and the privacy imperative.
3. Gartner. (2022). Gartner Identifies Top Five Trends in Privacy Through 2024.