Data protection safeguards your data’s privacy, availability, and integrity by adopting various data protection strategies and processes.
Privacy is crucial to establishing rapport between people and organisations, but it’s really about safeguarding fundamental rights. A good strategy can help prevent data loss, theft, or corruption and minimise damage if a breach or disaster occurs. An organisation that handles, stores, or collects sensitive data must develop a data protection strategy.
Data protection should be considered at the design phase of any system, service, product, or process and throughout its lifetime.
Personal information can be divided into various categories, all of which may raise privacy concerns. These are:
Fundamentally, the principles of data protection help organisations protect data and make it readily available under any circumstances to the individual. Data protection refers to both data backup operations and business continuity/disaster recovery (BCDR), such as:
Personal data is referred to as any information that can relate to an identifiable or identified living individual. A person can be identified by piecing together various bits of information, which, when collected together, constitute personal data.
Some personal data examples include; first names and last names, addresses, an identifiable email address (this could be firstname.lastname@company.com), location data, and IP (internet protocol) address.
Organisations usually rely on personal data for day-to-day activities.
The ICO states that:
“By itself, the name John Smith may not always be personal data because there are many individuals with that name. However, where the name is combined with other information (such as an address, a place of work, or a telephone number) this will usually be sufficient to clearly identify one individual.”
The ICO also makes the point that names are not necessarily the only information required to identify an individual:
“Simply because you do not know the name of an individual does not mean you cannot identify [them]. Many of us do not know the names of all our neighbours, but we are still able to identify them.”
Data privacy refers to how sensitive and important data should be collected or handled. Personal Health Information (PHI) and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) are two examples of data subject to data privacy laws. This category includes financial information, medical records, social security or ID numbers, names, birthdates, and contact information.
Sensitive data should only be accessible to authorised parties, so data privacy helps ensure that criminals cannot maliciously use data and ensures that organisations meet regulatory requirements.
The majority of online users want to control or prevent certain types of personal data collection, just as someone might wish to exclude people from a private conversation.
Businesses must make data privacy a top priority. Non-compliance with data privacy regulations can lead to significant losses. Think of lawsuits, significant financial penalties, and brand damage.
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Everything you do with data is considered processing; collecting, storing, recording, analysing, combining, disclosing, or deleting it, among other things.
Any operation on data is referred to as data processing. Because raw data isn’t ready for analytics, business intelligence, reporting, or machine learning, it must be aggregated, altered, enriched, filtered, and cleaned.
Organisations need to process data in order to create better business strategies and improve their competitive advantage.
The ‘why’ and ‘how’ personal data is processed is determined by the data controller. Ultimately data controllers are the key decision-makers in determining the reason and purpose for data collection and the method and means for any data processing.
Data controllers could be:
A data processor is a person, public authority, agency, or other body that processes personal data on the controller’s behalf.
A data processor acts on behalf of the controller and under their authority. By doing so, they serve the controller’s interests rather than their own.
In certain situations, an entity can be a data controller, a data processor, or both.
Machines that process data, such as calculators or computers, are considered data processors. Cloud service providers are also now categorised as data processors. A third-party data processor doesn’t own or control the data they process. The data can’t be altered to change the purpose for which it is used. If you’re processing personal data, you will be a data processor.
An individual who is the subject of particular personal data is referred to as a data subject or data subjects.
There is no single solution that works for every company. Data protection regulations don’t set many strict rules; instead, they take a risk-based approach, adhering to some key principles. It is versatile and can be used in a variety of organisations and situations; therefore, it does not inhibit innovative approaches.
However, this flexibility does mean that you must consider – and be accountable for – how you utilise personal information. There are often multiple approaches to fulfilling your obligations, depending on exactly why and how you utilise the data.
You may determine what answers are best for your organisation, but you must be able to justify them. The accountability principle of data protection law is a critical aspect.
Organisations, businesses, and the government must adhere to the Data Protection Act 2018 when handling personal information. The Data Protection Act 2018 replaced and updated the Data Protection Act 1998 and became effective on May 25th, 2018.
The DPA is the UK’s enshrinement of the General Data Protection Regulation (more on GDPR further within the article below) into UK law. To simply put it:
Strict rules called ‘data protection principles‘ govern how personal information is used. Those involved in collecting and using data must abide by the following stringent rules:
The more sensitive the information, the more legal protection there is. This information will be; race, ethnicity, political beliefs, religious beliefs, membership of trade union, genetics, biometrics for identification, health status, and sexual orientation.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the world’s most stringent privacy and data security regulation. Although it was developed and approved by the European Union (EU), organisations worldwide must comply if they collect or utilise data about EU residents.
The GDPR went into effect on May 25th, 2018. Those who don’t adhere to the privacy and security standards established by the GDPR could face significant fines.
The GDPR replaces the EU Data Protection Directive of 1995. According to the new directive, businesses must be more transparent and provide data subjects with greater privacy protections. When a serious data breach has occurred, the company must notify all affected parties and the supervising authority within 72 hours.
Even though the GDPR is enshrined within UK law as the DPA since breaking away from the EU, UK-GDPR and EU-GDPR are separate and distinct regulations. Whilst regulations are currently identical, since Brexit, the UK is free to amend UK-GDPR regulation as Parliament deems necessary.
A controller or processor based outside the UK must comply with the UK GDPR if their processing relates to individuals in the UK.
ISO 27701 is an extension of ISO 27001 (more on that below), the latest update in international privacy and information management standards.
The purpose of both GDPR and ISO 27701 is to establish ethical data privacy standards to protect consumers. They work together and complement each other in order to achieve the same goals.
Here is a summary of what they have in common:
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Various data protection laws and data from around the globe are found in the table below.
| Laws | Area of Jurisdiction |
|---|---|
| General Personal Data Protection Law (Also known as LGPD and Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais) | Brazil |
| California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) | California |
| Privacy Act | Canada |
| Privacy Act 1988 | Australia |
| Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 | India |
| China Cyber Security Law (CCSL) | China |
| Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) | China |
| Data Protection Act, 2012 | Ghana |
| Personal Data Protection Act 2012 | Singapore |
| Republic Act No. 10173: Data Privacy Act of 2012 | Philippines |
| The Russian Federal Law on Personal Data (No. 152-FZ) | Russia |
| Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) | Bahrain |
Article 32 of GDPR sets out what’s required when it comes to ensuring the security of personal data processing.
The regulation requires you to take ‘appropriate technical and organisational measures to address the risks you face. It also describes some of the typical measures in this regard, including:
ISO 27001 covers these aspects as well. You must perform extensive risk assessments to identify the dangers your company faces. That’s exactly what you need to figure out as ‘appropriate’ security measures under GDPR.
It establishes standards for when and how to put data encryption to work, as well as for ensuring the confidentiality and availability of your data. It also defines what is required in terms of “business continuity management,” thereby covering the GDPR requirement to implement data restoration and availability measures.
If you meet and maintain ISO 27001 compliance, you effectively have your GDPR data processing security requirements covered, thanks to stress testing through to staff training.
Whether you’re just beginning to look into data privacy or an expert seeking to combine multiple regulations and standards, our features are simple to utilise. You will get where you want to be right away.
Our PIMS solution simplifies data mapping. It is simple to record and review it all and to add your organisation’s details to our pre-configured dynamic Records of Processing Activity tool.
An effective PIMS requires managing risk. To assist with every phase of risk assessment and management, we have created a built-in risk bank and other practical tools.
Whether you’re working on data privacy standards or regulations, you must demonstrate your ability to handle Data Subject Rights Requests (DRR). Our secure DRR space keeps everything in one place, helping you to report and gain insight automatically.
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