How Automation can help you in Managing Data Privacy

The global data privacy landscape is changing and everyday we can see new regulations emerge.

These regulations are encouraging organizations to be better custodians of the consumers data and create a healthier space for data privacy. In order to do so organizations will need to rework their operations and revamp their processes in order to comply with these regulations.

According to a report by the International Association of Privacy Professionals, 33% of respondents have considered revamping their technology solutions around data privacy. This is where data privacy comes into play and organizations are looking for data privacy management softwares that can fulfill their data privacy needs, while complying with data regulations in order to avoid fines.

Tracking Personal Data

Data is stored in a plethora of internal and external systems in structured or unstructured form all across the organization. These systems can even spread over a geographical area depending on the size of the organization. In order to retrieve information, manual methods can be seen as tedious and time-consuming, not to mention the factor of human error.

According to Aoife Harney, Compliance Manager at AON, “One of the most important aspects of any data protection program is having an in-depth and documented knowledge of the what, the why, the where, the who, and the how.”

Different data privacy softwares that incorporate data intelligence serve various purposes in the organization. Certain softwares deal with cookies and consent, while others could focus on breach notification.

Now a days, organizations need all in one privacy management software platform that can address all these requirements and integrate data privacy within all their operations:

Compliance Requirements

Data privacy regulations such as the CCPA and GDPR require organizations to take responsibility for their consumers’ data. All data privacy regulations impose obligations on businesses for the protection of privacy of consumers by restricting data capture mechanisms, providing privacy rights to consumers on their personal data and introducing accountability in businesses data policies. Furthermore it imposes responsibilities on data controllers who store and hold data to protect it from unauthorized disclosures and to inform consumers when and if their data is breached.

In order to comply with these obligations organizations need to revamp the following practices to stay in compliance with global data privacy regulations.

• DSR Fulfillment: Organizations will be met with a plethora of Data Subject requests and will be required to fulfill them all in a specific time frame based on the regulations they are required to comply with. In order to make this process swift and seamless, organizations will have to automate their DSR fulfillment process.

• Data Mapping: Organizations have stored immense amounts of data over their internal and external systems that can spread across on a geographic level. In order to quickly link this data to the owner to avoid any delays, data mapping automation plays a quintessential part in complying with any data privacy regulation.

• Vendor Assessment: Manually assessing your third-party vendors and your own organization can be a tedious task that can present several bottlenecks and lack in collaboration. Whether you want to collaborate with key stakeholders or third-party vendors, there needs to be an automated system that can bring about this automation while simplifying the assessment process.

• Consent Management: Regulations such as the CCPA and GDPR require organizations to take freely given consent from their consumers before processing their data. Doing this task manually leaves room for human error and also the use of time and resources. Organizations need to create a universal consent capture system that can make this process faster while freeing up resources as well.

• Breach Notification: Privacy regulations require organizations to send a notification in case of a breach. Under the GDPR, for example,an obligatory 72-hour data breach notice for unauthorized access to systems and data, use and distribution of data is mandatory (Article 33). Recognizing a breach and then sending out a notification through manual means makes it virtually impossible to comply with the time frame given. Automating your breach notification system can save organizations thousands in fines.

• Privacy Policy Management: One of the core parts of any regulation is the need to revamp an organization’s privacy policies. These policies need to be in line with the data privacy regulations in order to comply. Organizations will need to revisit their privacy policies and change them according to the guidelines provided by these privacy regulations.

Automation: the Future of Compliance

The future beckon the arrival of automation and organizations will have to quickly adopt this if they hope to improve their chances at complying with global privacy regulations. Irrespective of the current state of the globe, data regulations are still going into effect and being enforced. If an organization hopes to comply with these regulations they need to find a solution that will automate their operations and manage all the aforementioned privacy requirements.

Aoife Harney says “Being able to clearly see when a client’s personal data was collected, what legal basis is relied upon for that activity, who accesses that information, and when it’s appropriate to erase is incredibly useful to any organization,” 

Organizations need to find a solution that will help them with their compliance requirements. The ideal situation would be to get this solution from an organization that allows flexibility and customization, as well as one that considers your suggestions from early adopters.

Organizations can also consider SECURITI.ai which is reputed as the Privacy Leader that offers a one-stop data privacy solution to businesses.

Authors:

Ramiz Shah, Digital Content Producer at SECURITI.ai

Anas Baig, Team Lead at SECURITI.ai

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, automation)

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