The Basics of Data Privacy

Regulations regarding the management of data that is collected and stored over the course of regular business have been around in some form or another for quite a long time, with industry or jurisdictional rules dictating how long companies should be able to retain certain types of data. As data volumes have ballooned over the course of the last couple of decades and cyber incidents have become more common, countries, states, and other jurisdictions around the world are creating and enforcing rules that disrupt the normal course of business.

Now, organizations must comply with increasingly complex rules regulating what types of data they’re allowed to keep and for how long—and consumers now have the right to ask for remediation of their personal data in some instances. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the U.S.’s California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), are the most far-reaching data privacy laws to date, but more and more state and national governments are putting effort into crafting legislation that requires the protection and access of consumer personal data.

What is Data Privacy?

Data privacy regulations and practices exist to help ensure that sensitive consumer data stored by businesses and other organizations is used for the purposes for which individuals have given consent and is otherwise deleted or removed from storage systems.

Why is Data Privacy Important?

Data privacy has become a central issue for consumers. A recent survey found that 81% of Americans believe that the risks of data collection by companies outweigh the benefits, and that nearly 50% had stopped using a product or service, or changed providers due to privacy concerns. Worldwide, two-thirds of people believe their data is less secure than it was 5 years ago. To address these concerns, governments around the world have been enacting privacy and data protection regulations. These regulations have begun to codify the expectations that consumers and employees have regarding the treatment of their data. Today, organizations are faced with a dizzying array of compliance obligations, as well as aggressive customer expectations. Meeting these obligations and fulfilling those expectations is a requirement for your business to retain customer trust. Data privacy is no longer an option, it must be at the core of your information management strategy and seen as a primary business risk