Posted by With enterprises and organisations adopting business transformation, the role of data privacy compliance and policies has become more vital to business strategies.
To effectively manage compliance risk, successful legal and compliance leaders use a cohesive and comprehensive approach to data privacy compliance, according to Gartner research.
According to a Gartner study released in 2020, more than 40% of Privacy Compliance technology will rely on Artificial Intelligence in the next three years.
In today’s era, with companies undergoing a rapid digital transformation, data privacy compliance has emerged as an important concern driving crucial business decisions, according to Peter Waters, VP of Legal, Equinix – a global data centre and digital infrastructure provider.
“As companies expand their digital footprints and massive amounts of data are being generated and transferred globally, cybersecurity vulnerabilities continue to upsurge,” says Waters.
Data Privacy Day
Since tech companies and businesses celebrate Data Privacy Day on January 28 every year, Water says it is a reminder for organisations to evaluate their cyber risks and ensure strong data privacy and security policies, and practices. But Waters quickly adds those policies and practices should be in such a way that will not impede innovation within the digital economy.
“It is a balancing act, and necessitates risk assessment. Due to the growing complexity of data flows, enterprises must evolve previous ways of securing data in transit and at rest to a posture of constant governance where all data is protected,” comments Waters.
Data privacy policies
According to Waters, Data privacy policies play a vital role in all business strategies, regardless of the size of the company. “It is not only organisations which have evolved in terms of digital adoption, but hackers also have evolved the way they perform cybercrimes,” he says.
To address external security threats, Waters emphasizes that organisations must deploy and frequently update the basic processes such as two-factor authentication, firewalls and anti-malware solutions.
Zero Trust architecture
Organisations can further enhance data privacy compliance and privacy policies by implementing Zero Trust architecture and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) capabilities.
“They can also implement extra advanced strategies such as Trusted Platform Module (TPM) capabilities and adopting Zero Trust architecture. Another crucial step towards comprehensive data privacy compliance is to be aware of which data is stored and exactly where,” points out Waters.
Human factor
While advanced technologies, security architecture, policies and practices can certainly help organisations strengthen security against cyberattacks and protect data, humans still remain the weak link in cybersecurity.
“The human factor is often the most vulnerable in the data protection chain. But organisations need to ensure employees are well-versed with the compliance regulations and best security practices,” says Waters.
He recommends organisations provide their employees with both training and proper guidelines for those who come into contact with the most sensitive data types, whether personal data or not.
Customers’ data privacy compliance requirements
Citing his organisation Equinix, Waters says security and privacy have always been paramount with strictly adhering to data privacy and cybersecurity policies and practices internally.
And that helps Equinix to serve its customers as well. “We are uniquely positioned to support data privacy compliance requirements of many of the largest enterprises in the world through cloud adjacency,” adds Waters.
“Through our Equinix Privacy Office, we proactively manage our own compliance with applicable new and evolving data privacy laws and seek to assist customers to do the same,” concludes Waters.