What’s involved in GDPR risk management?
Companies have worked hard to comply with the EU’s data privacy regulations to ensure individuals can “own their own data” in a digital world.
The initial phase of finding and auditing personal information was focused on large enterprise applications. The new challenge? To ensure that all data in core business processes is captured within the compliance process.
Using automation to deliver efficient and effective GDPR compliance
For businesses, the key significance of data privacy compliance goes beyond meeting the letter of the law. It’s about inspiring trust among customers, and defending a hard-won reputation. If people feel they can’t trust a brand or business with their personal data, they’ll find alternatives. The explosion in data-based engagement with customers is largely fueled by personal data, but new regulations impose tough penalties for mishandling it or using it without permission.
Processes for staying compliant and maintaining customer trust have to be effective yet also cost-effective. So new technologies are necessary to automate compliance and embed data privacy best practices across the enterprise.
Conquering the complexities of compliance
GDPR is well-established, and many companies have a solid handle on how their core data systems have to satisfy its mandates. But the complexity of data privacy compliance grows whenever new applications and data sources are introduced, or the regulation changes, or new clauses are added.
So it’s critical to keep policies and procedures up to date, to communicate those policies and capture attestations, to properly manage the data you’ve got in hand, and take control of informal End User Computing (EUC) applications, typically spreadsheets, that are part of core processes.
What technologies can meet these needs?
- A policy management solution can streamline and automate each step of the policies and procedures process, making it far easier to create and deploy policies – and show regulators you’ve got a defensible program in place.
- An enterprise content management (ECM) tool can collect, secure, and analyze data and documents from across the whole company, and properly delete data at its expiry date.
- And an EUC management solution can discover, monitor, and risk-assess the spreadsheets and other “hidden” assets that are probably essential to everyday operations, but are outside of IT control.
This is a powerful trifecta of solutions to the data privacy demands of the GDPR and other regulations springing up globally to protect people’s data rights.
Solutions
The complexities of dealing with more and more new regulations like the GDPR have made traditional processes and tools obsolete. To cost-effectively mitigate potential risk and exposure, companies are turning to state-of-the-art legal and GRC software solutions.
Policy Management
A policy management solution like Mitratech’s PolicyHub saves time and improves efficiency, supporting effective policy management by automating and streamlining the processes involved, and removing the complexities and errors involved. So you can build an ethical and defensible compliance program.
Enterprise Content Management
An ECM solution provides complete control over the capture, indexing, archival, retrieval, accessibility, delivery and retention of every item of business-critical information in an organization, via a secure central repository. For financial services firms who have to scrupulously manage personal data, this is especially vital.
EUC/Shadow IT Management
An automated tool like ClusterSeven lets you proactively discover, monitor, review, and audit changes made to End User Application spreadsheets and other “Shadow IT” data assets hidden across your enterprise. Gain a centralized view of enterprise-wide critical spreadsheet use, assess and prioritize critical spreadsheets, and provide transparency for management and auditors about your most important files.
Compliance & Obligations Management
A compliance and obligations management solution, like Mitratech’s CMO offering, uses a simple, intuitive interface to let employees and auditors be proactive in incident and audit management, including regulatory obligations, controls, investigations, and non-conformance reporting. Easily report incidents, understand your obligations, and continuously improve your compliance performance.
