How Data-Driven Business Becomes A Liability Without Responsibility
The biggest revolution in business technology is not any particular piece of hardware, software, or even AI. It’s the use of data. More and more businesses are gathering more data than ever about their customers, operations, and various metrics that can better inform their decision-making. However, this data isn’t just a tool. Without proper care, it can be a significant liability.
The Risk Of Poor Data Management
Data can help drive decision-making, bringing new levels of insight and context to everything from how we interface with our customers to efficient internal operations. However, mishandling that data, especially customer data, through poor security, lack of consent, or unintentional sharing, can put your business in all kinds of legal, financial, and reputational danger. Consumers nowadays are becoming increasingly aware of privacy issues, and losing their trust with a breach or misuse can result in lawsuits and steep fines. As such, ethical data use must be a cornerstone of your business going forward.
Compliance Isn’t Negotiable
There are plenty of data use regulations that you have to be aware of, depending on where your business operates. This includes GDPR, which affects practically any business operating in Europe or UK (even if not based there), HIPAA, which applies to any healthcare providers or insurers, and CCPA, which applies to any for-profit companies operating in California. Each of these imposes rules on how data is collected, stored, and shared. Non-compliance with these can be highly costly, so it’s important to know which rules you have to follow, and put polices in place to ensure you’re do.
Going Above The Bare Minimum
Ethical and safe data use isn’t just mandatory; it also does a lot to earn customer trust in a modern business environment that sees more and more of their information out in the ether. Going above and beyond the regulatory minimum, such as by following iso 27001 compliance guidelines, can help win that trust. What is iso 27001 compliance? It’s effectively a non-mandatory framework for companies that are looking ot manage information security risks, putting in place the right procedures and controls to protect data confidentiality and integrity.
Choose Your Partners With Care
You can put all of the policies and practices in place that you want, but if your partners misuse the data you share or leave it insecure, then the consequences can still come back on you. As such, when choosing any business or provider that handles the data you collect, such as a data center, you must take a closer look at their own reliability, security practices, and which regulations they follow in using the data you provide. Your data supply chain has to be managed with the utmost levels of care to avoid liability.
Data breaches and misuse have already claimed plenty of businesses and landed business owners in legal trouble. As we become increasingly reliant on it to help us improve our decision-making, it becomes increasingly important that we put the right practices in place to protect it and handle it properly.
