2023 Trends in Data Privacy That Could Impact Your Compliance

Data privacy has been a growing requirement ever since the internet age began. So much personal information is flying around through computer networks. Protecting it has become a mandate.

Most companies must follow HIPAA, GDPR, or another industry or locality-based privacy rule. By the end of 2024, 75% of the world’s population will have their personal data protected. It will fall under one or more privacy regulations.

You don’t need to be a large enterprise organisation to have data privacy compliance at the top of your mind. It goes hand in hand with cybersecurity. Additionally, privacy requirements hit all sized companies.

Between July 2020 and July 2021, GDPR violations rose by 113.5%. The number of associated fines also jumped by 124.92%.

It’s crucial to prioritise data privacy and factor it into all your data collection processes. When companies collect, send, or store personally identifiable information (PII), it needs protection, which means putting adequate safeguards in place.

To stay on top of your privacy compliance obligations, you should keep up with trends in this area. Next up, we’ve documented the biggest data privacy trends happening in 2023 that you should be aware of.

What’s Happening in Data Privacy Compliance?

AI Governance

Approximately 40% of privacy compliance technology needs artificial intelligence (AI). AI has undoubtedly made its way into many of the applications we use daily.

When you’re typing in MS Word and text springs up as a suggestion, AI predicts what you’ll type next. When working on a photograph in Photoshop, you can now click a button to smile at a frowning face, which is also the work of AI.

So, it’s no surprise that AI runs many algorithms responsible for protecting data. But what happens when there is a problem with AI? This is the question that AI governance is working to address. This is a new trend in data privacy because AI has never been so prevalent throughout the data journey as it is now.

Whenever AI is used in the data protection area, organisations need to govern it properly. This helps ensure that automated processes aren’t accidentally exposing sensitive data.

Consumer Privacy UX

Over the last several months, we’ve seen a trend of putting more privacy power into the consumer’s hands. Many privacy regulations require that apps and websites provide data transparency. They need to tell people what data they’re collecting, how it’s being collected, and what they do with it. People also need an “out” to get their data back.

These needs have led to consumer privacy UX becoming a “thing.” You can think of this as a centralised privacy portal. A place people can access privacy-related settings in various apps. This gives better visibility into how their data is being used.

Increased Scrutiny of Remote Employee Monitoring

The pandemic has forever changed the global workforce. Many organisations are now running completely remote offices. Or maybe using a mix of remote and in-office staff. The dramatic increase in people working from home has led to data collection changes. Companies are ramping up their monitoring of those employees working off-site.

But this type of monitoring opens a can of worms regarding data privacy. Organisations need to ensure that they aren’t infringing on the rights of their staff. This is most pertinent when putting monitoring in place on employee devices.

For example, approximately 49% of remote employees use their personal computers for work. Companies often put endpoint device monitoring in place for security reasons. They must ensure they are not gathering or backing up personal data. That would be data owned by the employee and not the company.

Data Localisation

One of the concerns when the social app TikTok became popular, relates to location. The firm is a China-based company, so people are worried about their data privacy. The data was initially stored on servers governed by the Chinese government, a country with very different data privacy rules than the US and other countries.

Data localisation is going to become more prevalent. Increasingly organisations look at where their cloud data is being stored. Where a server resides governs the privacy rules and regulations that it may fall under. Thus, companies and governments are now asking a question of cloud providers. This is, “Where is my data stored?” Many want their data to be as close to home as possible.

Privacy-Enhancing Computation (PEC)

Data privacy by design is a relatively new term. Using privacy-enhancing computation is a way that AI is helping cybersecurity. By using PEC as a built-in component of software and apps, developers provide value to clients. They address privacy concerns by making data protection more automated.

Look for PEC components in data analytics when shopping for business tools.

When Was the Last Time You Had a Compliance Check?

How are your data privacy protections? Are you risking a penalty due to lax controls? Give us a call! We can help with a compliance checkup.

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