Though some organizations consider privacy to be a static, one-size-fits-all objective to be accomplished merely to comply with regulations, it should instead be viewed as an essential part of gaining customer trust and, therefore, critical to business success. The consequences of poor privacy practices and the mistreatment of personal data can be dire, and it is up to enterprises to ensure that data are not misused.
To help supply more insight into the current privacy landscape, ISACA® has released the Privacy in Practice 2021: Data Privacy Trends, Forecasts and Challenges white paper. The white paper communicates the result of the 2020 State of Privacy survey conducted by ISACA in the third quarter of 2020.
Highlights from the survey results include:
- Technical privacy teams appear to be understaffed compared to legal/compliance teams.
- Technical privacy positions typically take longer to fill than legal/compliance positions.
- Nearly 20% of respondents report that the time needed to fill legal/compliance positions and technical privacy positions increased in 2020.
- Career opportunities for privacy professionals will increase.
- To bridge the privacy skills gap, hiring managers have turned to innovative ways to build stronger privacy teams such as training current employees to perform privacy duties.
- Compliance heavily influences privacy programs, with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) being the most common element.
- Most enterprises’ privacy strategies align with organizational objectives and boards of directors make privacy a priority.
Respondents are generally optimistic that privacy awareness is here to stay and that their organizations will be able to avoid a major privacy breach in the coming year. Survey results indicate that privacy continues to be funded and prioritized despite the economic uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To view all results from the survey, download the Privacy in Practice 2021: Data Privacy Trends, Forecasts and Challenges white paper on the ISACA website.