We can say that 2020 is certainly a year of data privacy laws! A good deal of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) fines and the first California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) penalties were issued recently, causing a lot of panic in the business world. The newest data privacy laws are increasing awareness regarding consumer rights. And there is no doubt that the massive fines are boosting the buzz and concern surrounding these policies.
Thus, many companies are starting to take these policies seriously to avoid the negative monetary ramifications and to garner goodwill with their customers and business partners. Establishing a thorough data privacy policy within a company has become a crucial determinant of brand identity and business success.
Moreover, these days if you don’t protect your customer data or don’t collaborate with your customers during the processing of their Personal Identifiable Information (PII), you aren’t qualified to run a business properly and legally.
Now that we’ve established the importance of data protection, let’s review the key customer data privacy trends in 2020 so that you can ensure you’re compliant and can scale up your business operations!
1. Regulations Everywhere
With the 2018 GDPR enforcement, the whole world has shifted its focus from casual data collection to data privacy rules that can’t be overlooked. Countries in other regions outside of Europe are following suit. For example, Brazil has established its own data policy law following the European example.
Even though the fines are different, almost all clauses are directed toward the same goal, the requirement for data privacy and security policy implementation within companies that operate in a certain area.
It is now necessary to obtain customer consent for any kind of data processing, collecting, and storing actions. CCPA is a bit different, however, it also focuses on allowing customers to exercise their rights over their data.
2. Data Privacy Fines
The data privacy policies have imposed strict fines for violating any of their rules. The European Union (EU) governments are known for issuing the highest fines. The heftiest was the French Google Inc. fine of 50 million euros. In just two years, companies have racked up a total of €175,944,866 in GDPR fines. In the United States, CCPA's officials have just started evaluating companies’ policies; however, there have already been thousands of dollars in fines! Thus, take a look at these policies to avoid these unfortunate occurrences.
3. Consumer Rights Awareness
In 2020, customers have been becoming more data-conscious. As data privacy regulations gain traction in the global economy, consumers are starting to understand the value of their data and the need to protect it.
Multiple data breaches in the last few years have spread the fear of data theft and misuse. Therefore, both companies and consumers are working hard toward stopping hackers from gaining unauthorized access and creating thousands of dollars of damage.
That has led to a trend where customers are prioritizing companies that respect their rights and are serious about data security. Moreover, a recent PwC study has discovered that companies are three times more likely to experience ROI if they have established a data security policy and have included a privacy team from the start.
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4. Data Privacy Trends In Company Management
One of the hottest issues for C-level executives is who is going to be responsible for the implementation of all these policies. It was found that 44% of CEOs see data privacy policy as one of the three most impactful policies to their business.
Because the stakes are high, the highest level of expertise is required for developing privacy policy positions. To best comply with GDPR, there should be a Data Protection Officer (DPO) in each company that has a background in legislation and engineering. This person needs to be free of the company’s loyalty to be able to objectively inspect the company’s compliance.
However, as the responsibility for complying with these laws is far-reaching and also essential for the company’s legal operations, the need for collaboration in the data privacy area within an organization is becoming a must. The DPOs or any other similar roles are expected to have their own department, but they will also need help from managers of the other business areas, such as HR and marketing. Only with joined forces will it be possible to cover all necessary data privacy areas.
5. Complete Employee Training
Probably the most problematic trend in the data privacy industry is a talent shortage! At the moment there aren’t enough data privacy experts even though the number of data privacy job positions increased by 77% between 2016 and 2019.
Unfortunately, this trend is projected to continue in the following years. During the next three years, companies will struggle to find qualified data privacy professionals to take care of their data privacy compliance. Thus, many companies are opting for in-house solutions. They realized that the key is to train their employees to become experts for their specific data policies, which follow the rules imposed by local jurisdictions.
6. Transparency Is The Key
Being completely transparent with your customers has become a winning business and marketing strategy. There is no better way to rapidly increase trust and build a robust customer base than through transparent cooperation. Today, customers don’t tolerate tricks and scams. They will stop using your services and in the worst cases, they will even share their bad experience on social media, which could cause irreparable damage to your company’s image. Transparent communication and overall openness are not just a nice-to-have anymore – it’s a must-have!
7. Numerous Data Graveyards
A data privacy trend that may have drawn the least attention, but is nonetheless very important, is the incredible number of ‘data graveyards’. Simply said, the data graveyard represents a database containing unused or irrelevant personal information. Either the company no longer needs this data, or they don’t have a legitimate reason to use it anymore.
Unfortunately, companies typically don’t remove all that data, creating a massive data and financial burden on their databases. GDPR, for example, described the rights for data removal and retention. Unfortunately, these rules have not yet become the standard, but it is expected that soon all companies will become more responsible regarding database purpose and usage.
8. Restricted Business Corporations
To increase the impact of data privacy policies and speed up the whole data privacy compliance process, data privacy officials have developed a network of influence where companies that have complied with the law will impact other companies that they do business with. For instance, GDPR requires that all companies create contracts only with suppliers and distributors that have implemented relevant data privacy policy.
Third-party risk management is becoming one of the main business risks and pain points of specific business strategies. Moreover, Gartner’s research has found that the number of leaders who consider third-party management one of the top risks has doubled. This means that organizations will invest more time and effort in vetting companies to ensure their compliance with data privacy laws. Over time, this will result in increasingly more businesses taking note of securing their customers’ data until companies with no data privacy laws in place are a thing of the past.