Context
- In a speech delivered at the Data and the Future of Financial Services 2021 conference, the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, has spoken about the value of data to business and how good data protection is an investment which can maximise the value of data.
Key points to note
- Good data protection consideration helps to encourages trust; trust is also earned by people having confidence their data won’t be lost or hacked.
- ICO research shows people who have heard about a data breach, have lower levels of trust and confidence in organisations using their data across the board, such that one company’s data breach can reduce the value of the data assets held by other companies in their sector.
- The ICO has seen a shift over the last three years with cyber security moving from being an IT responsibility to a board level imperative.
- In Elizabeth Denham’s experience, the biggest data security breaches come not from a lack of technical knowledge, but from a lack of awareness of what data a company holds, and a lack of staff training on processes.
Next actions
Firms should ensure that they are aware of what data they hold, they have appropriate data handling processes in place and that staff are appropriately trained.