Security and privacy laws and regulations help protect your business, employees, and customers. Companies that don’t have a security and privacy compliance program, or worse, those that ignore laws and regulations governing their businesses, and fail to comply, open themselves up to risks beyond fines including:

• Data breaches and fraud
• Regulatory investigations
• Potential lawsuits and financial liability
• Loss of licenses or ability to do business with certain stakeholders
• Reputational damage
• Business disruption associated with costs and time spent handling a compliance violation

Determining which laws and regulations are applicable to your business can be a daunting process that requires through research of various laws and regulations. That’s why it’s recommended that companies work with a compliance partner who can guide you and facilitate this process for your organization. There are three business areas organizations should focus on at the beginning of this process:

• Location: your business location as well as locations your business serve will give you a good understanding of which state and federal laws apply to your company.
• Industry: different industries may have different security and privacy laws, such as healthcare, retail, and financial services. The only way to determine which industry specific laws apply to your business is by conducting a through search of business-specific laws and regulations. Industry specific regulations include HIPAA and SOC 2 among others.
• Size: company size and revenue will also determine which laws and regulations are applicable to your business.

Because every company is different, the process to implement a security and privacy compliance program will vary to address its specific compliance requirements. However, most organizations benefit from a process with the following the steps:

• Determine laws and regulations applicable to your business
• Conduct a risk assessment to examine what information and data is collected, how they are used and stored, who has access to them, and how security and privacy is currently handled
• Establish which risks your company faces, including compliance risks
• Design your data security and privacy compliance program plan to mitigate those risks and address laws and regulatory requirements
• Appoint a leader to oversee implementation and communication
• Implement your plan, which includes policies, procedures, and tools that will support your compliance program, as well as changes to existing business processes and systems to align them with compliance requirements
• Train and educate your employees to ensure understanding of the program and their role in successfully implementing and managing the program
• Implement controls and perform audits to monitor your program and pinpoint areas of risks and non-compliance
• Take corrective action to address problems and improve your compliance program

Maintaining a successful security and privacy compliance program is an ongoing process of implementation and evaluation. Policies and procedures evolve as regulatory requirements and laws change and, as a result, your processes and systems must be re-evaluated to ensure they continue to meet compliance. For this reason, the steps above should be considered as a process cycle, not a one-time process for the initial implementation.

The process to obtain certifications will be different for each law or regulation governing your business. In addition, certification is not available or required by all laws and regulations. The first step, before obtaining certifications, is to determine which data security and privacy laws and regulations your business is required to comply with. Next you should implement a data security and privacy compliance program. Only after you have successfully implemented your compliance program, you will be able to apply for certifications if required or available.

• Document your policies and procedures and update your data security and privacy compliance program regularly
• Apply your policies and procedures consistently throughout your organization, making sure all employees and other stakeholders follow them
• Remove barriers to compliance by making your policies and procedures easily available and accessible to your employees and other stakeholders
• Reinforce your procedures and policies with regular training
• Stay current with changes in laws and regulations
• Schedule compliance audits regularly
• Use tools and systems to help simplify and manage your compliance program

Our final tip, choose us as your partner in compliance. We provides data security and privacy compliance services as part of our Premium+ subscription level. For $74.99/month per employee, you will receive guidance and support to implement an effective compliance program in addition to our full suite of IT support services. Schedule your free consultation today or call us at 866-302-0916.

We include security and compliance as part of our IT support services because IT plays a critical role in a company’s efforts to implement a data security and privacy compliance program. This intersection between IT and compliance, combined with our mission to provide cost-effective support solutions to small and medium-sized organizations, led to the decision to expand our service offering and add data security and privacy compliance services to our Premium+ subscription level.