CS1907

data-centric economy
GDPR - OPPORTUNITY, NOT THREAT
GDPR HAS INCREASED DEMAND FOR DATA PROTECTION PROCESSES THAT ARE FLEXIBLE,
AUTONOMOUS AND EASY TO USE. DEBBIE GARSIDE, GROUP CHIEF INNOVATION SCIENTIST
AT SHEARWATER GROUP AND CEO OF GEOLANG, EXPLAINS
Debbie Garside, Group Chief Innovation
Scientist at Shearwater Group and CEO
of Geolang.
Since GDPR came into force,
businesses handling personal
data have turned their attention
to processes that protect sensitive
information by design and by default.
This was a key innovation in the
legislation and has extended data
protection from a technical issue to
a matter of process and psychology
at all levels of the business; including
every employee by default.
In a data-centric economy, identifying
and categorising different types of data
is an enormous task. The Information
Commissioner's Office (ICO) expects
enterprises to know where sensitive data
is located and to take steps to prevent
its theft, loss or unauthorised access;
yet, over a year on, and still many
organisations are failing to implement
even the simplest 'technologies' to assist
with the task.
Reportedly, 96 per cent of data
breaches are accidental; however,
breach-reporting deadlines and
potential fines apply, regardless. With
the reported £183 million penalty
indication for the BA data breach from
the ICO this week, these penalties are
no longer a figment of what might be,
but indicate, rather, what will be, if
organisations do not take care of
their data - board-level culpability will
undoubtedly ensue. This will serve
as the much-needed catalyst to fully
support those CISOs, CTOs and CIOs
who are still having difficulty persuading
boards of the risk not just to their data,
but to the business as a whole.
As a data discovery and data protection
company, GeoLang has seen increased
demand for our systems, because we find
and categorise data both autonomously
and in real time, with the flexibility to
apply different policies to different data.
This prevents - for example - the emailing
of a client contact list to the wrong
recipient or alerts if any proprietary
information is copied to a USB drive. In
addition, flexibility and ease to search for
personally identifiable information (PII)
across the enterprise is key to servicing
Subject Access Requests (SARs) and we are
seeing a plethora of requests for GeoLang
technologies to assist in such cases.
Each client has a different set of
requirements, with many different
operating systems and repositories making
up the average enterprise. A flexible, agile
approach is a necessity and we work hand
in hand with clients in the development
and deployment of our solutions; there
is no 'one size fits all' or a 'silver bullet'
solution, and our personalised service
is proving to be both an asset to our
customers and to us, as it supports our
product development lifecycle.
One of the fears in the lead-up to GDPR
was that the regulations would decrease
productivity, tying up businesses with
extra administrative work. The reality
is somewhat different. Increased
opportunities for innovations around
technologies that protect sensitive
data and clients' rights are offset by
organisational and digital resilience that
future-proofs the enterprise, leading to
increased competitiveness and growth.
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computing security July/August 2019 @CSMagAndAwards www.computingsecurity.co.uk