Securing data in today’s digital space takes more than a drawer with a lock. With the existence of cybercriminals, computer networks—including yours—are vulnerable to attacks.

If you fail to adequately secure your data, there’s a high chance that they’ll get into the hands of attackers. And once that happens, you have no control of it.

The more knowledgeable you are about data privacy solutions, the better you can secure your network.

What Are Data Privacy Solutions?

Data privacy solutions make securing your data easier. If a piece of information is valuable to you, leaving it in the open is risky. You need to keep it in a safe place to prevent it from being stolen or compromised. Data privacy solutions thrive on that premise. They are a safe haven for your personal and sensitive information.

Apart from cybercriminals, you also need to be concerned about data brokers that collect online users’ data for their own interests.

Why Do You Need Data Privacy Solutions?

You have probably seen some spy movies and are familiar with what happens when sensitive information gets into the wrong hands. The incidents in these films may be fictional, but they aren’t far from reality. Terrible things happen when cybercriminals get hold of your data.

Let’s look at the reasons why you need data privacy solutions.

1. Prevent Regulatory Sanctions

Data protection agencies enforce data privacy regulations. You can be penalized or sanctioned if you don’t comply with established regulatory standards. With data privacy solutions, you are empowered to do right by the law.

2. Avoid Unauthorized Access

Adopting data privacy solutions helps you to ensure that your private data is only accessed by authorized people. By doing this, you prevent intruders from accessing your data.

3. Protect Your Reputation

Having the private data of your customers or users exposed is a dent in the reputation of your organization. Securing the information on your network makes you look good and responsible to your publics.

7 Features of an Effective Data Privacy Solution

The importance of a data privacy solution isn’t up for debate. But for a tool to live up to expectations, it must have some features. Otherwise, it won’t be able to perform efficiently.

The right data privacy solution should be able to perform the following roles.

1. Classify Personal Data Automatically

The privacy of sensitive data is compromised when people manage it manually. A data privacy solution should be automated to identify and classify sensitive information stored in the cloud and other data sources. This feature helps you to know the kind of data you have and where you store them.

2. Launch Risk Assessment

Several risks may be hidden in your network without your knowledge. An effective risk assessment scans your database for easy configuration and runs a personal risk data profile for you. The likes of vulnerability scanning help you to identify loopholes in your network.

3. Achieve Complete Visibility

Full visibility is one of the features of a reliable data privacy solution. You should be able to sieve through all available data whenever the need arises and identify the parties that access them and at what time. Things can hardly go wrong when you have full information about the activities on your network.

4. Manage Data Subject Requests

In the absence of a reliable data privacy solution, you spend more time and resources when you try to fulfill Data Subject Access Requests (DSAR).

Your data privacy solution scans your databases, checks for related attributes, and automates a workflow that accesses only your data assets.

Data privacy solutions easily identify related attributes that they have with other data fields. When these attributes merge, they form independent personal data.

By identifying the related attributes of your data sets, it’s easier for your data privacy solution to retrieve these data whenever you need them.

6. Initiate Swift Response

Your choice of data privacy solution should be able to initiate a swift response and protect all sensitive data before a breach occurs.

Data privacy solutions can do this by consistently identifying accesses that have risky behaviors and pose threats to the safety of your private data. They automatically notify you of policies that have been violated and correct the behavior before it becomes severe.

The function of your data privacy solution also includes granting you access to the knowledge of who accessed the data and when it was accessed.

7. Complement Current Solutions

The data privacy solution you decide on should complement current solutions, security, and privacy tools that you use already.

If your decision complements the current solution, it will reduce the time and resources you spend on audits.

You should further protect your data by identifying the data access and behavioral patterns that pose risks to your database.

Your Data Privacy Responsibilities

Cybercriminals and data brokers aren’t the only ones you should be wary of regarding the exposure of your datagovernment agencies also spy on your devices to collect your personal information. As much as data privacy solutions can be automated to function, you can’t completely take your hands of the process.

To comply with data privacy rules and regulations, you must adhere to the following responsibilities.

Take an inventory of the personal data in your custody by identifying all the documents and where they are kept. Identify all the users and systems that have access to these data, so it’s easier to spot the source of malicious activity. Ensure that you follow the legal requirements for data privacy and protection of personal data to avoid penalties and sanctions. Monitor the activities of your data handlers to ensure that they comply with the rules as non-compliance exposes your network to cyber threats. Provide resources for data right requests in the legal timeframe allowed. Secure the information you would need in the eventuality of a breach and formulate response plans and actions.

Reinforce Your Defense Against Cyberattacks

Data privacy solutions are essential in sustaining the privacy of your private data as they have a safe lock for the information you store in them. Attackers would have to break the lock to gain access.

Considering the advanced technology of these tools, breaking in requires a lot of time and effort. If the solutions are sophisticated, they’ll detect the intrusion and put up more resistance before the attackers gain access.