Today, January 28th is Data Privacy Day – an international effort to empower individuals and encourage businesses to respect privacy, safeguard data and enable trust.
As the world moved to remote work and the established security boundaries of our offices and internal networks were brought home, today is a great opportunity to reinforce with your teams that privacy matters to your organization – how we collect, store and increasingly access our customers data.
Recent data breaches at brand-name organizations across sectors from Marriott Hotels to Desjardins to home-grown Lifelabs demonstrate the cost and reputational consequences that failing to protect customer data can impose – quite simply, protecting your customer’s privacy is not only everyone’s business but good for business.
As you look to champion becoming privacy aware, here is some advice from the National Cyber Security Alliance on managing privacy at home and for the business:
- Personal Info is like money: Value it. Protect it.
Just as you wouldn’t leave money laying around unsecured at home or at the workplace, the same applies for personal information. For individuals, this means making informed decisions about consenting to sharing data with businesses by considering the information being requested and the potential benefits in return.
Businesses should prescribe to the if you collect it, protect it mantra – make sure your employees are only collecting personal customer data for relevant and legitimate purposes and have been provided with the tools to ensure safe storage, preventing inappropriate and unauthorized access.
- Manage your privacy settings
Did you know that each device, application and browser you use has different settings affecting how and with whom you share information?? Take the time to check the privacy and security settings on your web services, mobile apps and digital devices to ensure you’re comfortable with the level of information sharing.
- Manage oversight of partners and vendors
As organizations shifted to remote work and adopted new cloud-based communication and file-sharing platforms, many did not realize that some popular solutions are not compliant with the Canadian Personal Information and Electronic Document Act (PIPEDA). PIPEDA requires that the personal information of Canadians remains in Canada and while this is an established privacy law, adherence also supports organizations in building trust in their business and the digital economy.
Becoming a Privacy Champion
Propel Solutions can help your organization make privacy everyone’s business. As an exclusive partner of Microsoft 365, we can offer a 6-month free subscription to migrate your files to a cloud solution that is backed by Microsoft’s best-in-class security and PIPEDA compliant. Whether you are undergoing a digital transformation, need a technology assessment or are looking to explore cloud solutions, let our team of Microsoft experts guide you. Reach out today at 604.346.5185 or [email protected]
