Data Privacy Day Encourages Businesses to Pay Attention to Data Breach Prevention

By Stephanie Jordan
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Did you know that Data Privacy Day is celebrated on January 28 in the United States, Canada and about 27 European countries? According to proponents, Data Privacy Day promotes privacy awareness and education among teens and young adults, focusing on the privacy issues raised by the use of social networking sites, cell phones, BlackBerry devices, online gaming, and other online activities and mobile devices. Privacy-related events on Data Privacy Day have drawn the support of academics, politicians, and corporations. Microsoft, Intel and Google are among the day’s sponsors.

To coincide with Data Privacy Day, the Online Trust Alliance (OTA) this week released its 2011 Data Breach & Loss Incident Readiness Guide outlining key questions and recommendations to help businesses in breach prevention and incident management. The OTA Guide was developed in collaboration with and the support of dozens of industry organizations and corporations.

“In the past five years, over 525 million records containing sensitive personal information have been compromised, significantly undermining the foundation of consumer trust,” says Craig Spiezle, executive director and president of the Online Trust Alliance. “With the onslaught of criminal and deceptive business activities, we are calling on business leaders to develop a readiness plan. Those failing to act may be faced with increased public scrutiny, regulatory pressures and a tarnished brand reputation.”

The goal of the guide is to raise awareness of the severity of a data breach while helping businesses and organizations prevent and mitigate data security and privacy crises. Walking readers through the key points of designing a Data Incident Plan (DIP), the guide offers insights, prescriptive advice and actionable recommendations for businesses of all sizes.

Want to take OTA’s 2011 Data Breach Incident Readiness Guide challenge? Here’s a quick quiz for businesses: Your organization should be able to answer these five key questions:

1. Do you know what sensitive information your company maintains, where it is stored and how it is kept secure?

2. Do you have an incident response team in place ready to respond 24/7?

3. Are management teams aware of security, privacy and regulatory requirements related specifically to your business?

4. Have you completed a privacy and security audit of all data collection activities, including cloud services, mobile devices and outsourced services?

5. Are you prepared to communicate to customers, partners and stockholders in the event of a breach or data loss incident?

So, how’d you do?

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Eye on Messaging is written by Stephanie Jordan, editor in chief of Messaging News. If you have story ideas or news to share, email her: sjordan [at] messagingnews [dot] com

Published January 26, 2011