Is data protection just another bureaucratic cost loaded onto business?

Now that we’re into the last 16 months before full compliance is required, you will have realised that data protection compliance is a complex transformation programme, requiring you to examine and catalogue every part of your business, make changes to processes and training, implement new systems and controls, and establish ongoing governance frameworks and audit mechanisms. Sounds like a lot of work just to comply with some more rules while you’re trying to grow revenue and profits, right?

Well, yes, if that’s how you approach it. If you leave data protection in a silo and try to achieve compliance as a minimum cost tick box exercise, your cost will still be substantial and all you’ll get will be a ticked box. You might also find that your expensive checkmark doesn’t actually prevent you from being fined or sued – documenting the controls is one thing but living them is quite another.

On the other hand you could lean in to the DPDPA and get the four huge benefits that come from doing privacy properly:

1.  Better cyber security

Data protection requires you to minimise the personal data you collect to what is strictly necessary for the stated purposes of processing, and to limit the number of people who have access to that data on the same principle. If you do this properly, you’ll significantly reduce what the cyber experts call your “attack surface” by cutting down on both the data you keep and the routes to get at it. At the same time, the training you’ll have to deliver to ensure that all your staff understand how to handle personal data properly will significantly enhance their cyber awareness at the same time.

2.  Business efficiency

The foundation of DPDPA compliance is a database called a “Record of Processing Activity” (RoPA). This is a granular list of all of the personal data processing in your business – what you collect, from whom, what you do with it, where you store and process it, who is doing that processing, with whom you share the data, how long you keep it and why you are doing it. That’s a map of your business – it has way more value than just compliance. You can, and should, use it to look for process inefficiencies, duplication and inaccuracy in data, opportunities for automation, and wider business insights. The ROI on this alone can pay for your DPDPA programme.

3.  Customer trust

Securys has conducted multiple research projects in our Privacy Made Positive® programme. Across multiple geographies and sample groups we’ve shown that 70% of consumers include data protection in their selection criteria when deciding whether to buy from a particular vendor, continue with an existing relationship or complete an in-progress purchase. Can you afford not to use privacy as a competitive advantage in your market?

4.  Risk to asset transformation

Finally, and most importantly, because it will change how you think about data and what you can get from it. The danger of compliance programmes is that they lead you to think of data as a risk – and certainly, if you don’t deliver effective data protection, a risk is what it will be. But the reality is that data should be an asset, one that you protect because it has value and delivers a worthwhile return. If your data is current, deduplicated, accurate, properly linked to a single customer view, securely stored and processed and properly consented by data principals who trust you, it transforms into your most valuable asset and the key to data-driven growth.

If you’d like us to help you achieve DPDPA compliance and transform your data from a risk into an asset, you can Contact Us.