Whether the responsibility for information privacy resides with legal counsel, human resources, IT security, finance, accounting or a newly appointed chief privacy officer, all industries are now coming under tighter scrutiny. This is partly due to the increase of new mandates and continued pressure to comply with existing legislation such as HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Patriot Act in the US, PIPEDA in Canada and in Europe, the Data Privacy Act and Safe Harbor laws.
But perhaps the biggest driver of accelerating scrutiny is the constant barrage of privacy management failures…so prevalent are the failures that many are calling a privacy epidemic. This scrutiny comes from board members, customers, the public, auditors and regulators; all who see compliance progress as slow for many different reasons and have different criteria for judging your performance.
Information privacy is critical in a world where Personally Identifiable Information (PII)* can be so easily compromised. To make matters worse, there are many links in the privacy chain (HR, sales, marketing, customer service, IT, finance) and a failure in any of them can cause the whole system to fail. Ironically, your weakest link may not even be within your company. It may be in the partners and suppliers you do business with whose inadequate safeguards can also put you at risk.
Privacy breaches or failures to comply with regulations can have a negative effect on your board’s focus, company’s brand and reputation, customer’s and public’s trust, and the bottom line. With the downside so substantial, a large number of companies are beginning to ask some important questions. How will we be judged re: our information privacy program? Are we ready? Will we be prepared if and when we come under scrutiny? And do we have a plan to manage privacy in a holistic and simplistic manner?
Join Axentis President Ted Frank and OCEG CEO Scott Mitchell on this webinar.
Topics to be discussed include:
• Trends, failures and generally what experts are predicting
• The various judges and how they will likely judge your performance
• Defining a plan and picking an effective privacy management approach
• AICPA/CICA’s Generally Accepted Privacy Principles (“GAPP”)
• Effective use of technology in organizing and managing a privacy program
• Specific places to start building an effective program and opportunities to secure quick wins
Increase your confidence in proving an effective compliance process—join us on January 30 for a 1-hour webinar at 2:00 p.m. EST. When you register, you will be directed to a new page that gives you the opportunity to participate in a confidential survey (only aggregated results will be published) and share your perspective on these issues. The highlights of these survey results will be shared during the webinar. See how your privacy management compares to others in similar role and industry. For completing the survey by January 26, you are automatically included in a drawing for a $100 American Express Gift Certificate from Axentis.
* PII: Personally identifiable information refers to information such as phone numbers, account numbers, email and physical addresses and government issued identifiers such as drivers license and social security numbers but could also include other confidential information such as intellectual property and other trade secrets critical to a business.