Handling customer data is not an easy thing to manage. You know you’ve got something very sensitive in your hands, and to drop it or let it slip between your fingers would spell disaster.
And for many companies, the ability to stay on top of security protocols, security compliance, and long term data protection is an ongoing fight.
It’s not the kind of thing you can think once about, set up a framework, and then forget. You need to know you’re always doing your best to keep data where it’s been consented to be stored: within your secure business parameters.
But on top of that, you also need to know you’re taking actions to both limit the data you have on hand, and safely transmit this data, no matter who it is that needs to access it.
So, is your business handling data correctly?
What Data Do You Collect?
You shouldn’t be collecting data that you have no ‘reasonable’ need for. Names and addresses of customers are reasonable, in that you need to have both a billing and shipping address available if they buy something from you.
But if you ask for a phone number, despite only ever using email communication, you could be storing data you have no real need for. And this could cause you to butt heads with data protection regulations.
How Did You Create Your Data Protection Policy?
Did you come up with it with the help of a legal representative? Or is it more a case of putting together your own policy from a template you found online? Both methods are common in the small business scene.
Either way, your data protection policy needs to be specific to the business you do, the data you need to take, and detail the actions you’ll commit to to make sure none of this data goes awry.
You can also make use of an AI compliance tool within your organization, but it’s the kind of cost you need to plan out in advance. A tool like this will make templating, drafting, and evidence collection instant, but the services running the tools can charge high prices for the convenience.
Indeed, the cost of Vanta alone could run you up a bill in the tens of thousands, which can be a hard price to justify – even if a platform like this could help form more accurate frameworks tailored to the way you operate.
Could You Destroy Data if Necessary?
If someone contacts you for a copy of their data, could you provide it? And if they asked for the data to be destroyed, would you be able to prove you’ve done so?
This is all about knowing where you keep sensitive details, and how you can be sure they’re no longer in the system.
Correct data handling is about keeping it brief, having relevant policies, and deleting data when it’s no longer needed. Go through these questions to check if you’re ticking the box each time.