Top Five Reasons to Re-evaluate Your Privacy Posture

Every organization has a privacy posture — a set of systems, rules, and principles that define the governance and protection of sensitive customer and employee data. Whether or not your privacy posture is already explicitly defined, it’s good to periodically review how well your data architecture and processes safeguard your stakeholder data. 

Here are the top five reasons to take another look at your privacy posture to see if you’re positioned for success, or “slouching” and in need of straightening up:

1. You don’t have a codified set of data privacy standards that drive your architecture
   Without a privacy-by-design approach to securing and governing data, sensitive data sprawl is inevitable as sensitive information passes through analytics processes and business workflows. Whether it’s the marketing team rolling out new campaigns and sharing audience data with agencies or HR running analytics on training and certifications, common business workflows can result in the duplication of sensitive personal data. And the duplication of sensitive data makes that data less private and secure.
   
   
2. You’re building or launching a new offering that uses customer data
   Getting closer to your customers is a great way to improve engagement, but comes with the need to secure more sensitive data that your existing data privacy posture might not adequately protect. Whether you’re just starting to get into direct consumer relationships or extending existing relationships to a new platform or offering, now is the time to make sure your infrastructure is built with data privacy as a core design tenet to avoid losing customer trust.
   
   
3. You’re entering and expanding into a new market
   Achieving compliance in global markets is a constantly moving set of targets. Your privacy posture needs to ensure that you’re able to meet the requirements set out in each jurisdiction while providing you the flexibility required to comply with evolving regulations.
   
   
4. You’re embracing hybrid or fully remote work
   As organizations enable employees to work from anywhere, outdated data security models based on network perimeters and controlled access points no longer make sense. You can remove the risk of data misuse by employees engaged in normal business activities by creating location-flexible policies that offer flexibility without compromising security and governance.
   
   
5. You’re reviewing or auditing your compliance and certifications
   The process of constantly evaluating your processes, data use, and technology stack to maintain legal compliance or certifications is complicated and costly.  You can reduce the surface area of exposed sensitive data – and significantly reduce the scope of audits and compliance verification — by changing your data access policies and adopting strong data governance practices.
   

If you find yourself facing one of these situations and need help thinking through your approach, contact us.

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