The digital landscape has evolved immensely in the past decade and continues to undergo tremendous change. As new technologies continue to disrupt industry, legislators and regulators around the world are working aggressively to come up with nuanced compliances to fit the fast-evolving digital landscape. The trend has put businesses under immense pressure to modify and upgrade their data security and privacy infrastructure to meet the changing regulations. Any failure to meet these regulations can result in payment of hefty fines, suspension of operations, and loss of brand credibility among customers. An example of how meeting data security and privacy breaches can impact an organization’s bottom line was on display when a leading financial data services provider was ordered to pay US$575 million for a data breach that exposed
With various geo-specific regulations in place, it can be hard for organizations to navigate through the various complexities of data privacy and security regulations. Let’s take a look at the most prominent regulations shaping data security and privacy compliances around the world.
General Data Protection Regulation
The General Data Protection Regulation set out by the European Union in 2018 is the strongest set of data protection compliances globally. One of the most wide-ranging data protection legislation, the GDPR standardizes data protection laws for the entire European region and applies to all businesses collecting and using data related to the people residing in the region.
The GDPR lays down seven accountability and protection principles for data processing and collection:
Lawfulness, fairness, and transparency: The accountability principle emphasizes that the collection of data from people should be fair, transparent, and lawful
Purpose limitation: Data should only be used for the specific purpose as explicitly informed to the customer
Data minimization: Only the minimum possible data should be collected for meeting the intended and specified purposes
Accuracy: All personal data should be accurate and updated by both data processors and collectors
Storage limitation: Private data on individuals can only be stored as long as it is required for the explicitly defined purpose
Integrity and Confidentiality: Data processing procedures should adhere to maintaining appropriate security, integrity, and confidentiality through the use of strong encryption
Accountability: The onus of demonstrating meeting GDPR compliance falls on the data controller and they should be able to provide proof for meeting the aforementioned principles
It is essential that data controllers have valid proof to justify meeting accountability. A few ways controllers can do so are:
- Clearly designating data protection responsibilities to your teams
- Maintaining a clear document trail clearly defining how data is being collected, used, processed, and the employees accessing and responsible for it
- Continuous training of staff for implementing organizational and technical security measures
- Have iron-clad data agreements with third parties having access to your data and processing it
- Have a Data Protection Officer in place to overlook and govern organization-wide security policies
Data Security
The GDPR laws necessitate organizations to have appropriate technical and organizational security measures in place.
Technical measures include the use of data security protocols such as end-to-end encryption, two-factor authentication, and endpoint security.
Organizational security measures refer to things such as the creation of centralized data usage and handling policies, periodic and frequent employee training, and limiting data accessibility only to organization employees.
And one of the key requisites under data security provisions is mandatorily notifying data subjects whose data has been exposed during a breach within 72 hours of the occurrence of the event. Failure to do so, makes organizations liable to pay hefty fines.
Data Protection by Design and Default
GDPR enforces organizations to put data protection at the center of all their operations by integrating it into their processes by design and default. To ensure this, organizations must focus on creating development blueprints that prioritize data security each step of the way.
Data Security and Privacy Regulatory Challenges
With data security and privacy regulations evolving at an exponential pace, it is becoming extremely challenging for organizations to manage compliance. Some of the biggest data security and privacy challenges facing organizations operating in the cloud are:
Risk Management
With antiquated on-premise technologies unable to offer the performance, stability, and reliability necessary for thriving in today’s cut-throat market, organizations are either moving to API-driven architectures or migrating to the cloud. Both instances result in an increase in the number of components involved in driving the operations creating a larger surface area for organizations to manage. Any gaps in the management of the various components can result in data leakages, cyber criminals gaining unauthorized access, and adversely impact business continuity.
To avoid this, organizations should develop comprehensive risk management plans that cover all bases. However, with IT infrastructures expanding and operational architectures becoming more complex, risk management can become a cost, time, and resource-intensive task.
Data Ownership
Defining data ownership in the cloud can be complicated. Any data breach or leak impacting the cloud storing your customer’s sensitive information can have a catastrophic impact on your business. In addition to violating data security and privacy regulations, it can lead to loss of customer credibility, impact your brand reputation, and adversely impact your bottom line. Defining data ownership and understanding the intricate print of the various data regulations is necessary for creating iron-clad contracts that clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the data controller, collector, and processor.
Data Privacy
Mismanagement in the cloud can create data privacy challenges that can compromise data confidentiality and lead to data loss. With the cloud leveraging virtualization to run multiple different workloads on the same infrastructure, any vulnerabilities in a virtual machine can expose other workloads to security threats. It’s necessary that organizations have the transparency to check the security measures applied to the cloud infrastructure and know there is a dedicated manager to ensure any new updates made to infrastructure or computing resources are backed by the necessary security upgrades.
Meeting Location-specific Data Regulations
With the cloud infrastructure distributed across geographies, businesses need to ensure that they meet the data regulations of the regions they are operating in and the location where the data is stored. A slippage in meeting any of the location and operation-specific regulations can result in businesses incurring extensive fines and losing customer trust.
CloudHost: Managed Data Security and Privacy that Meets Evolving Compliances
As a company that has originated in the cloud, CloudHost has been at the forefront of helping organizations build secure, high-performance, and resilient operations in the cloud. With extensive experience in developing BFSI, healthcare, retail, and manufacturing cloud solutions, we have helped leading global organizations set up and process data in the cloud while ensuring end-to-end security and compliance.
Situated in the UAE, the CloudHost operations are compliant with GDPR and other leading global data regulations to give businesses a ready and secure foundation to kickstart their cloud transformation journey. Backed by a team of cyber security experts, CloudHost offers organizations a transparent view of the operations and empowers them to take the right steps to expand their business while keeping end-user data safe and secure.
In addition to the intrinsic security capabilities of CloudHost’s solutions, our managed services and disaster recovery solutions are tailored to help businesses meet fast-evolving data regulations, protect end-user data, and expand their operations hassle-free.
Looking for cloud infrastructure that streamlines data regulation management and security? Contact us for a no-obligation to discuss your requirements.
