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EDITOR’S QUESTION
ANDRZEJ KAWALEC, DIRECTOR
OF STRATEGY AND TECHNOLOGY,
EUROPE FOR OPTIV
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F
undamentally, businesses need to
take responsibility for how they treat
consumer data. The introduction
of the GDPR has been a great first step in
bringing accountability for consumer data,
where businesses have been forced to be
more centralised in the way they collect and
store their data.
However, businesses need to do more
than what the GDPR stipulates and ensure
they are adopting a mindset in which they
treat consumer data as sacred by taking
active steps to maintaining it ethically
and responsibly.
As a result, this in turn provides companies
the best possible chance of gaining value
from the data. Afterall, enormous data
lakes of faceless, nebulous data is more of a
headache and problem than having a tighter
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more targeted list, not only from a security
perspective, but it also makes it impossible
for businesses to understand consumer
trends and gain valued insights.
Once companies have adopted this mindset,
they then need to understand where their
data is located and who has access to it.
Once businesses know this, they can start
taking the appropriate steps for protecting
that data.
Upon doing so, businesses need to ensure
that they have the right process controls in
place to protect the data. Knowing where
data is located, making sure the data
collection practices are legal, maintaining
an accurate audit trail, and having the
controls in place to protect data are all key
milestones to demonstrate compliancy and
protect consumer data. n
“
BUSINESSES
NEED TO
ENSURE THAT
THEY HAVE THE
RIGHT PROCESS
CONTROLS IN
PLACE
TO PROTECT
THE DATA.
INTELLIGENTCIO
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