Why do you need a Privacy Management Program?

Organizations in Canada are required to take responsibility for protecting the personal information under their control. A Privacy Management Program is a key component to ensuring that your organization is effectively managing and protecting the personal information it collects. A privacy management program ensures that laws regarding data privacy are being complied with, mitigates the significant risks associated with data breaches, helps builds trust with customers and demonstrates accountability. Accountability is a key consideration due to the requirement imposed on organizations to be responsible for the personal information under their control. A Privacy Management Program will effectively position your organization to respond to any privacy law complaint, audit or regulatory investigation. The key reasons to have a privacy management program are:

1. Compliance with regulations – privacy legislation requires organizations to take steps to protect personal information.  Having a privacy management program in place ensures not just compliance with this requirement but also provides a mechanism to show compliance.

2. Risk mitigation – your privacy management program will assist in the identification of potential privacy risks and provide you with the opportunity to proactively address them, with the goal being that through identification of risk your organization can prevent data breaches and the associated reputational and financial consequences.

3. Customer/client trust – demonstrating a commitment to privacy through a well-developed program can enhance trust with customers and clients and in turn improve your organizations reputation.

4. Employee awareness – implementation of a privacy management program helps to educate employees about data privacy policies, their role in preventing privacy breaches and their responsibilities in handling personal information.

5. Transparency and accountability – a privacy management program involves an organization documenting its privacy practices which can then be used to demonstrate accountability to individuals whose data is held, or to respond to a privacy or regulatory complaint.

6. Improved decision making – a key component of a privacy management program is regular privacy assessments which will allow your organization to identify areas where improvements are needed and to enable better decision making regarding data collection and use.

The regulatory framework regarding the holding of personal information requires organizations to respond proactively and responsibly. A key step in that is development of a comprehensive privacy management program.