One of the biggest challenges for today’s organizations is keeping sensitive data safe. Failing to ensure data privacy can result in massive reputational hits, devastating financial losses, and even legal repercussions.
The conversation is constantly changing, so it’s essential to stay up to date on current risks and data privacy trends so your organization can be aware of what’s at risk and what you need to do.
In this article, we’ll explain why corporate data privacy is so important, highlight the most important current trends, and share some best practices to follow.
What Is Corporate Data Privacy & Why Does It Matter?
Corporate data privacy refers to the combination of activities your company engages in to protect the privacy and confidentiality of its data and other digital assets.
Data today comes under threat from multiple angles — theft from cyber criminals, loss due to technical disasters, compromise from internal bad actors, and more. Much of this data is highly sensitive as it concerns private company information, valuable intellectual property, or the personal details of customers like their financial information or medical records.
For this reason, companies are under more pressure to keep their data private. Taking the proper action here is essential. Some of the main reasons data privacy is such a serious matter for today’s companies include:
- Compliance issues. Today, data privacy isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s a legal obligation. Regulations like GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California require businesses to maintain strict data privacy policies. Failing to protect user data will result in eye-watering penalties. For this reason, over 60% of businesses globally are increasing their investment in data privacy compliance.
- Reputation. Consumers take the privacy of their data seriously. In fact, 94% of organizations say consumers won’t buy from them if their personal data is not adequately protected. If your business develops a reputation for being careless with customer data (for example, being found guilty of selling it), you risk losing your customers’ trust and taking a significant reputation hit.
- High costs. Companies that fail to protect their data face high, and growing, financial costs — the average cost of a data breach in 2021 was $4.24 million according to IBM.
- Growing risks. Maintaining the privacy of your data is harder now than it was in the past, and one of the biggest drivers of risk is remote work. According to Deloitte, 80% of employers now allow their employees to carry out at least some of their work remotely. This exposes their devices and data to extra risk, making it harder for the organization to protect them.
It’s not possible in this day and age for organizations to simply forgo technology altogether to avoid compromising both internal and external data. Instead, companies must take a proactive approach by staying on top of data privacy trends.
Data Privacy Trends to Be Aware Of
Data privacy is a constantly evolving field, and new trends can quickly shift the playing field and give companies entirely new risks to worry about. Here are some of the biggest trends to pay attention to in 2024.
More (& Stricter) Regulations
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the rules around data privacy aren’t getting any laxer. As of 2024, more and more regions around the world are imposing tough regulations on companies to enforce greater data privacy.
Research suggests that in 2024, 75% of the world’s population will have regulations in place relating to data privacy.
The March of AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow at breakneck speed, and data privacy is one of the affected areas. AI is exceptionally good at analyzing large sets of data and pulling out critical information in terrifyingly short amounts of time, which creates a major concern for those tasked with keeping that information private.
The good news is that AI is also driving advancements in data privacy and security for companies able to quickly adopt it.
A Growing Lack of Centralization
One of the big challenges for organizations when it comes to data privacy is a lack of cohesion between CISOs and their teams.
In an interview with Forbes, Mo Plassing, Chief Product Officer at data security company Immuta, said, “While CISOs are often accountable for data policy enforcement, recent research shows that efforts are largely decentralized and often lack a clear chain of command. This means there’s a significant gap between security, privacy, and access that needs to be addressed.”
If organizations are to stay on top of their data security as time goes on, they’ll need to address this disconnect.
A Focus on Security for Children
Until now, the narrative around data privacy has generally focused on adult users. However, with more and more kids using the internet for large chunks of time, the privacy of their data is in the spotlight.
Driven by parents’ understandable concern for their kids’ well-being online, regulators are taking action. A new California law, due to come into effect this year, could be the start of more national and worldwide legislation to protect children’s data.
5 Best Practices for Corporate Data Privacy
Maintaining proper data privacy is an ongoing challenge, but certain best practices remain relevant in 2024. Here are five key steps to follow.
-
Always Be Aware of Relevant Rules
Since the regulatory landscape around data privacy is constantly changing, you need to constantly ensure you’re up to date and in compliance with all the relevant rules.
Keeping a finger on the pulse of the regulations here will ensure you avoid any unpleasant legal surprises and allow you to implement necessary changes ahead of time rather than scrambling to put them into place at the last minute.
-
Ensure Communication & Collaboration
For data privacy initiatives to succeed, you need to ensure close collaboration between all the relevant members of your organization. This means key decision-makers like CISOs and IT directors, security team members, compliance teams, and anyone who works with sensitive data like marketing and sales.
Organize regular meetings and correspondence chains, encourage questions when there’s any confusion, and give everyone access to updated and detailed documents regarding compliance. Bringing things closer together in this way ensures everyone understands his or her role in data privacy and how that role fits into the organization’s wider responsibilities.
-
Focus on Endpoint Security
The endpoints of your network are crucial for your overall data privacy, and this is truer now than ever in the era of widespread remote and hybrid work.
Your security strategy must place a strong emphasis on monitoring and protecting your network’s endpoints using techniques like endpoint detection and response (EDR).
-
Stress Test Your Defenses
Methods like red teaming allow you to pressure test your security by emulating real-life attacks, throwing light on any areas that need to be tightened up.
This can help drive stronger data privacy policies by showing companies where attackers can potentially access sensitive data and how to resolve these vulnerabilities.
-
Educate Your Teams & Do the Basics Right
A big part of data privacy is simply getting the fundamentals right. Everyone in your organization should understand the importance of data privacy, what’s at stake, and what they personally need to do. This doesn’t just apply to security teams or those who work with sensitive data all day — everyone who accesses and interacts with data at any point should be well aware of their responsibilities.
While specific security protocols will differ based on the organization and should be customized to your people, processes, and tools, there are some practices you can likely encourage your teams to adopt right away, including updating passwords regularly, teaching good password hygiene, and taking extra precautions when accessing company data from remote locations.
Work With DYOPATH
At DYOPATH, we can help you implement better data privacy policies across your company by focusing on security and compliance.
We’ll guide you through the complexities of all relevant regulations and help you harness the right technologies to secure your data and stay on the right side of the law.
Get in touch with us to learn more.
