Personal and customer-based data privacy is becoming a more significant concern for everyday users and companies each year. According to a 2019 Cisco study, researchers found that businesses have invested twice as much into data privacy in 2019 than they did in the last 3 years combined. With recent data breaches from major companies like Capital One and Equifax, we can understand why more organizations are taking data privacy concerns more seriously.  How can you better manage your data and ensure that it's protected even when other companies have control over it?

Being Smart About Your Data

New laws taking effect worldwide are setting up rules and regulations to ensure that individual data is kept secure.  The EU's General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) went into effect and compels organizations to prevent data from getting into the wrong hands and ensures that it's obtained through consent.  Coinciding with these new rules, US states have implemented their own data privacy measures.  The California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA), which goes into effect this January, includes some nuanced departures from GDPR.

Ensuring that your policies are complying with these new and upcoming rules can help you to avoid hefty fines as well as keeping you and your customers’ data safe. Even with new laws going into effect, however, gaps in data privacy policy may still remain.  At the end of the day, you are the best resource for keeping your data and that of your customers' data safe.  Regardless of your industry, an end-to-end approach to data privacy concerns is critical.

There are several ways to ensure your data is kept private:

  • Know Where Your Data Lives - By understanding which companies have access to your information, you can better control how it's accessed and who gets to see it.
  • Utilizing Encryption - Using complex passwords and keeping them up-to-date can prevent individual data breaches from effecting your personal information
  • Data-Masking Techniques - processing that doesn’t require identification
  • Limit Sharing - Keeping online information about yourself to a minimum
  • Strong Passwords - Making sure your passwords are unique and strong help secure your data

How A Managed IT Infrastructure Can Help

Data privacy, and compliance regulations are definitely becoming a growing concern in 2019 and are expected to continue growing going forward.  Partnering with a Managed IT services company, like Natural Networks, can certainly help you manage how and where your data is accessed. Additionally, having a Managed IT services company helps defend you from potential threats through phishing attacks or malware that could compromise your company’s or customers’ information. These potential threats could lead to costly fines and loss of trust in your industry.

For example, SaaS (Security as a Service) applications are becoming more popular among industries involved in sales, human resources, engineering, marketing, and finance. Using these applications means that the data therein is kept in the cloud - meaning, that you may not have control of the data that is served to and from these specific sources. Uri Native, a cofounder of SaaS management solution Torii, explains, "A single system of records for all your SaaS is the foundation of compliant SaaS management." To ensure full compliance, it is best practice to work with an IT department that understands these various tech stacks.

Natural Networks is a Managed IT services provider that has helped many companies with ensuring their data is secure and backed up with our , Managed IT, Network Solutions, Cloud Solutions, and Data Backup & Recovery. We also can help your organization navigate the best ways to keep your data privacy policies compliant with future laws mandates.  If you're interested in learning more about how we can help you maintain data privacy, give us a call today.