Compliance
06.08.2020
Back to blog listRegulatory internet data laws you should be aware of and maintain compliance with
If you are running an online business, there are things you are liable for which you might not be aware of, particularly regarding data access to certain individuals’ files, which may end up putting you in the position of being stuck with a hefty fine if not promptly remediated. For this reason, your own and your employees’ awareness and compliance with these laws as well as the way you are required to grant data access, handle data files, process data files, and store data files should be a daily concern for the welfare of your business. You must be disciplined when it comes to payment gateways you use and ascertain that there won’t be any data exposure during payment transfers by your partners. It is of the utmost importance that you thoroughly vet your partners and the visibility of their processes, make sure they have built-in anti-fraud features, inquire as to whether they’re hosted or not, and make sure they have encryption.
You must be sure to maintain payment card compliance and be aware of applicable trademarks, copyrights, visibility requirements, shipping restrictions for certain products, age restrictions, and permits. Last but not least, you must adhere to data security regulation. Nobody else’s data can ever fall into somebody else’s hands that shouldn’t have it. Thus, always ensure that all of your data carriers are completely controlled, easily remediated, and destructible from a distance. Learn about the laws of the in states or countries in which your website is available, in particular the EU’s new GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, which was passed just recently in 2016.
GDPR Data
The data access that is illegal to provide, unless you’ve already obtained the individual’s explicit permission, is termed as personally identifiable information. Although IP addresses and the search history from an individual IP address can be shared, this data cannot include such data as a person’s name, address, ID numbers, phone numbers, or date of birth. Some of the primary rules of the GDPR classify businesses’ responsibility in the case that any data are stolen.
Regulated Responses
The GDPR dictates that, when alerted, businesses are required to report to individuals which data they are keeping on them and to whom they’re making it available. They must do this free of charge and in a timely fashion upon their request. Furthermore, according to the GDPR, any sharing of data through encryption must be explicitly permitted by the user (the GDPR even considers cookies personally identifiable information) and on consent forms, individuals must check boxes independently concerning the collection of their data. Leaving those boxes pre-checked is illegal.
Data Access Security: Regulating Accountability
Thus, the GDPR has imposed it as a major priority that businesses whose activity involves storing and processing the data of their employees, suppliers, and customers have an organized system in place for handling these GDPR data, as well as an organized and efficient procedure for reporting evidence of the data they’re maintaining on these individuals and deleting GDPR data when they request to do so.
Regulated Risk: Deletion After Accessing no longer necessary GDPR data
Make sure you have no visibility of apparent unauthorized data posted online. In addition, rather than retention, if you have a number of idle GDPR files and your particular regulated data becomes unnecessary to your business due to a shift in its activity, do not archive that number of idle GDPR files without knowing what the purpose is that you are archiving it it for, unless the individual has explicitly agreed to their retention and to have his or her regulated data shared with third parties. Archived or deleted files that are no longer necessary after the organization’s accessing GDPR data or third-parties accessing the archived GDPR data should be deleted, and if, due to the individual’s preference, they are not archived or deleted, they are best stored on an external encrypted drive.
GDPR Audits
The GDPR encourages business to also have its data ready as hard evidence and provide that evidence in a timely fashion in the event that the threat of the business getting an audit from the GDPR materializes. Otherwise, there may be regulatory fines, especially in the case of an unusual amount of data uploaded to the website. With an unusual amount of data uploaded to a website, the number of idle GDPR files may draw attention.
Regulated Access to Data File Deletion
As a rule, an individual has the right to ask that any of his or her data be deleted from the Internet according to this law. It is on you to make sure your storage system as well as any partners you are in business with have a firewall, prioritized classification, and robust security control system to avoid threats as much as possible. Analyze the features of their systems so you have hard evidence. You must also have thorough cookies and privacy policies, including the specifics on how you handle their data, which customers must give their permission for.
Regulating Employee Access
As important as it is for you to be aware of GDPR and statewide data protection laws, it is just as crucial that you regulate your employees’ access as well as ensure that they are aware of them and maintain full compliance with such regulated access and regulated procedures. A good tip is to write a range of employee policies that they are required to undergo training on to ensure that they follow regulated state, GDPR, business, and other data security classifications of the regulated territories in which your website is available. If a company changes the method of its classification and handling of individuals’ information, the data protection regulation requires that it contact each of its customers to have it explicitly authorize this change.
California Consumer Privacy Act Regulating Access
Although the rest of the world trails in these policies, many jurisdictions’ policies such as California’s also impose matching policy rules, such as the customer’s the right to know the classification system of their regulated data and how it is accessed. Furthermore, California’s policy and the EU’s policy have matching rules that allow costumers to request compensation and that businesses will have to remediate them in certain cases of those policies.
Compliance Evaluation: Classification of Compliance
Many businesses much greater risks and security control issues than they realize and one of the best ways to achieve compliance with higher data control security standards is to review the risks that certain facets of the business entail based on their likelihood, frequency, and impact level weighed against what the company is gaining from the handling of those data and data access by others. Certainly, the 20 million euro GDPR fine in the case of flagrant unnecessary data exposure is a rule that small businesses must be sure to avoid at all costs. For instance, suppose you have an old colleague from 20 years ago with whom you have not spoken since and you want to promote to them something completely irrelevant to their field of business without first requesting them to opt in, this may entail greater risk than potential reward, since these e-mails will likely be unwanted.
Safe Regulated Customer Contact
After all, your operations in accessing their e-mail box requires you to comply with opting in policy in many countries. Here is another example: suppose you decide to use your regular customers’ data according to your retention policy to upsell them by e-mail and offer them third-party services. This would be high reward and low risk since regular customers’ data is how businesses make most of their profits and they are already receptive toward your offers. The risk and value of emailing potential leads on your mailing list of people who have voluntarily provided you data access and subscribed to your website would be somewhere in between.
Compliance Reports: Security Retention Policy Critiques
Reviews such as these will classify for you where the greatest value and risk lie in engaging in certain actions with respect to your lead data. There is also a breath of auditor tools designed to break down your company’s operations, audit, report, compile an audit trail, determine compliance, request additional compliance measures, and classify flags within your organization. Employees are also flagged in certain insider risk auditor programs that provide alerts as to current and upcoming compromising situations in which they might not be complying with regulations. If a company wishes to obtain auditor compliance certification, it can access an accredited auditor by e-mail or over the phone who can analyze the company’s audit trail and provide a compliance report detailing whether the organization’s compliance is up to par.