How to Protect Your Customer’s Confidential Data
In this article you will learn:
The Importance of Data Protection
The Key Elements of Data Protection
Consequences of Data Breaches
Data Protection Risk Assessment Checklist
Prioritizing Data Privacy Management
Our personal data is constantly being collected, processed, and stored by various organisations online. Online forms are always asking us to, ‘Add your email here to receive our newsletter’ or ‘Let us know your date of birth for a free birthday treat!’. But some companies want to know our address and even credit card details for basic online transactions. Have you ever stopped to wonder why?
The importance of data protection is high for ALL businesses including small businesses. Having effective data protection methods and systems in place not only builds trust and confidence amongst your consumers but protects their valuable data that may otherwise be used for fraud, scams, and identity theft by hackers. With such a high volume of data being exchanged online, data privacy management is key to sustaining business success.
Let’s look at how your business can prioritise customer data confidentiality and protect your valuable assets online.
What is Meant by Data Protection?
Data protection refers to the measures put in place to safeguard your data from unauthorised access, loss, or corruption. The aim of data protection is to minimise the risk of data breaches and ensure that confidential data is secure. Examples of security measures to manage data protection include password management, security software, access controls, staff training and encryption. Encryption can help protect your data both in transit (e.g. when you're sending an email) and at rest (e.g. when your data is stored on your device).
Why is Data Protection and Confidentiality Important?
Data protection and confidentiality is important because of the dire consequences of a potential breach. The average cost of data breaches per hour worldwide has increased dramatically in recent years to around R13 950 835* (2023/07/31). These costs can accumulate due to money lost, as a result of fraudulent purchases, fines, not adhering to data protection laws, or profit losses from reputational impact.
Here are a few key elements of data protection and confidentiality to keep in mind:
Trust – An organisation that is proactive with data protection and confidentiality is more likely to be trusted by its employees, customers, and shareholders, allowing you to build a trustworthy reputation.
Keep confidential information safe – Confidential information is just that – confidential! The sensitive information you store within your businesses needs to remain private and the consequences of data breaches can be very damaging.
Comply with POPIA for Data Security – Ensure your business keeps sensitive information safe and respects privacy rights by adhering to the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). Avoid consequences like fines and reputational damage while building trust with stakeholders through data compliance.
Risk mitigation – When it comes to data protection, prevention is better than the cure. Your business needs to store and collect data correctly to keep it safe online and reduce the risk of corruption, breaches, and theft.
Risk Assessment Checklist
With good data privacy management, you can keep your business safe online. A data protection risk assessment is used to identify and minimise the data protection risks of a project and decide how best to keep high-risk data safe.
We’ve put together a data protection risk assessment checklist to help your business stay on track with data protection. Look at the below and apply or adapt it to suit your needs.
Data Protection Risk Assessment Checklist for South African small businesses:
POPIA Compliance: Ensure adherence to South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) regulations.
Data Inventory: Identify and categorize personal data collected, processed, and stored within your small business.
Data Access Control: Limit access to personal data to authorized personnel only.
Data Security: Implement encryption and secure storage measures for sensitive data.
Data Consent: Obtain explicit consent from individuals before collecting and processing their data.
Data Retention: Comply with legal requirements for data retention and establish a data retention policy.
Data Breach Response: Develop a plan to respond to data breaches and mitigate potential risks.
Employee Training: Provide data protection training to employees to ensure awareness and compliance.
By following these eight points, your business can protect personal data, stay compliant with POPIA, and enhance data security for their businesses.
