A report released by Gartner, Inc. has estimated that 65% of the world’s population will have its personal data policed by some form of data privacy legislation by 2023. Gartner analysts presented The report was made public during the Security & Risk Management Summit 2020, taking place virtually in the Americas and EMEA this week.
This will represent quite the jump since 2020 when just 10% of the world’s population had private data protected in this fashion.
Gartner, Inc. is one of the largest research and advisory groups in the world. Nader Henein, research vice president at Gartner commented on the report saying: “With more countries introducing modern privacy laws in the same vein as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the world has reached a threshold where the European baseline for handling personal information is now the de facto global standard. Lawmakers are introducing new privacy laws that seek parity with the GDPR. These regulations allow whole countries to move one step closer to achieving adequacy with the EU, where their local businesses can benefit from a larger market with their new ‘trusted’ status.”
This report emphasises the importance of companies doing everything within their power to ensure that they are in compliance with all relevant pieces of legislation for the sector and jurisdictions that they do business within. Failing to do so could result no only in financial penalties but also in reputational damage caused by data breaches. Even though the highest possible GDPR fine is 4% or annual global revenue for the previous financial year or €20m (whichever figure is higher)you may find that you end up losing a lot more revenue if people are reluctant to use your services as they feel it may be unsafe.
The report is quite revealing at a time when the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is celebrating its second anniversary and the California Consumer Privacy Act is facing potential amendments to make it more wide-reaching before the end of 2020.
It is strongly advised that those responsible for the management of IT systems and compliant with in every group create processes and policies that are scalable can be independently managed to match the specific needs of your organization.