As the value and significance of data have risen through the last decade, the number of laws to regulate data collection and usage has also increased manifold. Gradually with time, such laws have become increasingly stringent. Additionally, organisations leave themselves vulnerable to massive penalties and other types of punitive action if they fail to comply with such laws while carrying out their business operations in the jurisdiction in which they are applicable. Some of the most well-known — and the strictest — data protection laws are EU’s GDPR, China’s Personal Information Protection Law and California’s CCPA.

Due to the high stakes involved, you must leave no stone unturned when it comes to data protection regulatory compliance, regardless of jurisdiction. Here are 3 actions that will help your business meet such objectives:

1)    Recognise and address network vulnerabilities

Identifying the data security vulnerabilities in your data network enables you to plug gaps more accurately. To identify areas of vulnerability, businesses can carry out security testing for their applications and devices. Additionally, DevOps practices for internal business applications must be implemented and religiously adhered to.

Businesses must make it mandatory for employees to create "tough" passwords for their office devices. Strong password creation is also a must to safeguard all login channels used by employees in an organisation. Periodical changing of passwords is strongly recommended. Apart from intelligent password management, IAM must also be bolstered. IAM is a key ingredient in identifying and preventing data security threats as and when they emerge. To make the IAM of your business more powerful, you must use an intelligent firewall for behavioural tracking and contextually-aware login protocols on all your devices, cloud-based applications, and other frequently used apps.

Apart from IAM and password management, another important factor is having the requisite data backup and data tracking frameworks in place so that breaches and data theft do not affect your business with as much intensity. This allows your business to make a quick recovery whenever a cyber-attack hits your data network. Your business must install a cybersecurity team that carries out regular file and device restoration. There are regulations such as SOX and PCI that make data tracking mandatory with digital or physical records. These records need to be updated during backups. They must also be protected from data security attacks. If backups, data tracking and backup security are not used, businesses can leave themselves vulnerable to cyber-attacks and subsequent legal implications.

The last part of identifying and addressing cybersecurity threats is endpoint data security. A large number of businesses have felt in recent years that, apart from the endpoint devices in a workplace, data endpoints must be protected. To ensure this, workstations must be configured to lock after a certain period of device inactivity. Additionally, any user who tries to login into your operational network with the incorrect password more than a certain number of times must be locked out. Such users will only get their access to the network back via the cybersecurity team in your business.

2)    Make adjustments to your website

These days, websites are simply large touchpoints for data collection. So, every link or button clicked by a customer leads to data generation and collection. Data regulation laws such as the GDPR make it mandatory for businesses to get consent first from customers before extracting information from them via cookies. To do this, your business will need to clearly and explicitly inform your site visitors that cookies are being used for data collection purposes. This enables your customers to know that their movements are being tracked. More importantly, this step gives your customers the choice of not allowing your business, or any other business sites, from taking their data without their knowledge. Different companies may interpret this differently, as some businesses use separate session and functional cookies for tracking data across specific sessions and visits. Cookie consent is an essential need of data protection and regulation. Complying with it keeps you away from unnecessary data security litigations and penalties.

Facilitating cookie consent allows you to meet a large number of data protection protocols. Apart from that, you can also include specific opt-in forms on your website to collect customer data in a more structured way. Once again, different businesses may carry out this part of the process differently.

Finally, once the data is collected, GDPR also provides guidelines regarding how email marketing can be carried out.

As you have seen, protecting your own data from cyber threats is as much of a priority for the strictest data protection regulations in the world as giving customers the option to not share their data with websites.

3)    Data mapping and privacy policy

Regulations such as the CCPA and GDPR want businesses to know exactly where their data is currently and where it will be directed in the future. Data mapping is the process of closely monitoring your data movement within and outside your organisation. Keeping track of data flows acts as proof of regulation compliance. Additionally, mapping also allows the regulatory authorities to put their finger on the areas where compliance is not being achieved adequately.

Apart from data mapping, international regulations also make it mandatory to have in place a robust privacy policy. Having a privacy policy is useful for your users as it provides a legal basis for data collection and retention and also gives them the right to make complaints if certain data-related regulations are not being adhered to.

Data protection and regulation is as important as data security in today’s data-driven landscape. While following the measures listed above help you to meet the former objective, using Gajshield’s intelligent firewall systems and other data security tools and applications enable you to leave no room for improvement on the latter front too.

You can contact us to know more about our entire range of data security products and services.