Bespoke customer experiences, automated business processing, and data science-driven insights all depend on the quality and volume of your collected data. That is why your Global data privacy strategy must be more than a policy built on ethics.
Why is a global data privacy strategy important?
In a recent PwC survey, 94 per cent of businesses said the rise of the digital economy is impacting their business today, but 44 per cent of the survey respondents stated that data privacy and security are their two top concerns. This is why it is more important than ever for businesses to take a global/regional view of data privacy. Rather than manage privacy for each country/region separately, businesses should leverage a unified framework that’s designed to address the unique security and compliance needs of every region, keeping data privacy a primary focus. That said, businesses will have to work within regional and country-specific guidelines. How do you meet the compliance requirements for example across operations in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore?
The benefits of a global data privacy strategy
An effective global data privacy strategy offers benefits that are not only compelling but relatively easy to implement. Since data privacy regulation varies between countries and maybe in a state of flux, a well-defined data privacy strategy can serve as a proactive and helpful guide for international business travellers, who typically feel at a disadvantage when travelling abroad. A compliance-driven data privacy policy establishes standards for data access, management, and use; protects the data and provides guidance to companies when it comes to processing personal data. It can also keep compliance costs down for companies and show them how to leverage data privacy to keep their customer relationships intact.
What is a data privacy strategy?
A data privacy strategy is a way to assess and manage your data by developing policies and strategies to ensure its secure and privacy-conscious protection. It is often implemented by large businesses or government bodies but also easily implemented for the small-medium-enterprise sized organisation as a protective measure, aimed at ensuring data breaches are avoided and personal data is protected. But what does it really entail?
How to build a global data privacy strategy
Organizations can address the complexities of privacy regulations through a well-defined data governance framework, which leverages people, processes, and technologies to establish standards for data access, management, and use, both within and across regions. Recognising the expertise required and the shortage of experienced qualified people for a number of data-intensive roles, organizations can consider an external partner to deliver data privacy as a managed service allowing the organisation to focus on internal operational efforts
Conclusion
Privacy regulations and governance practices are often the last pieces to be integrated into a business’s overarching strategy for global compliance. As with the data strategy, here the organization plays a pivotal role in defining and implementing governance policies and programs, in order to enable the right level of privacy compliance in the products, services and other applications used by customers, partners, suppliers and employees. Ultimately, the organization’s role in privacy compliance involves establishing and maintaining the framework that enables the appropriate level of privacy protections and safeguards.
VinarcoPDPA provides expert consultancy services across all of the SE Asia regions. Call today +66 (0) 2285 6240-9 or email info@vinarcopdpa.com
