I'm tickled pink to be a guest on the 5 minute podcast with Gord Sheppard!
On the podcast, we talked about What Leaders Need To Know To Start a Privacy Program.
Here’s a summary of our discussion.
Train Your Team About Privacy And Security
You must train your team about privacy and security in your practices.
Let me use an example. A business in Alberta had a privacy program in place in 2013. In 2018 they experienced a privacy breach where an employee was snooping and got caught. When the Commissioner's office did the investigation, nobody in that practice, nobody in that business could find the policies and procedures that they had in place in 2013. The staff told the investigator that they hadn't received any training since that time. (See the article, “Do You Know Where Your Policies Are?”)
We need to make sure that we're providing privacy and security training on a regular basis, not just on orientation. You need to keep privacy and security top of mind.
Privacy Is An Investment That Will Save You Money
Privacy awareness training and proper policies and procedures is an investment and it is part of your operating costs. It will also save you time and money by avoiding re-work and re-training. When you have good policies and procedures in place and you're making the right decisions, you're avoiding all sorts of other costs about fines, a bad reputation, poor customer service. When you build that into your practice, you're going to reap the rewards about having an efficient practice and making sure that you're meeting all those requirements.
The Benefits Of Naming a Privacy Officer
Every business needs to have a privacy officer in your organization. This is somebody that you have assigned with the responsibility to make sure that there's a privacy management program in place. Now, not all privacy officers need to know everything. They do need to know those important questions and they need to know how to make it practical for your business.
Stay tuned for an announcement about the new course, The Practical Privacy Officer starting in September.
When You Understand Privacy, You Make Better Business Decisions!
When you have good privacy practices in your business, you will make sure to also select the best vendors who can work with you that also demonstrate their knowledge and support about privacy practices. You can build privacy practices into your business contracts and your agreements. This will also help you to grow your business reputation and attract better business partners and business suppliers and better clients and customers for your organization.
I've put together a checklist for you about the 10 Key Steps To Prevent A Privacy Breach.
Download the checklist and make sure that you implement these best practices in your business.
Meeting Leadership Podcast
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Sharon Polsky is the president of AMINA Corp. and a Privacy by Design Ambassador with more than 30 years’ experience advising corporations, governments and organizations about privacy and access implications and unintended consequences of emerging laws, technologies and global trends. She is also president of the Privacy and Access Council of Canada, the nonpartisan national non-profit association of privacy and access professionals in Canada’s private and public sectors.
