Many organizations have established privacy offices to manage their risk and compliance obligations over personal information.
While the risk to personal information only increases as fraud based on such information grows, some organizations are going through restructurings and reductions of their workforces that affect privacy.
Compliance offices and privacy professionals
These offices have grown in some cases to include several privacy professionals. Because privacy management depends on many professionals across the organization, the network of those involved in protecting personal information has likely grown and formalized over time as well.
The changes in the economy and the landscape of privacy management affect the governance considerations in many organizations, in some cases in contradictory directions.
While the risk to personal information only increases as fraud based on such information grows, some organizations are going through restructurings and reductions of their workforces that affect privacy. These organizational changes may range from modifying the make up of the privacy office or, less directly, when positions across the organizations that have some part in the management of privacy (e.g., in IT, legal, procurement) are changed or eliminated.
As organizations acquire others, the challenge of privacy management further increases as the combined organization is dealing with broader scope of responsibility over personal information and streamlining the use of information that may have different commitments associated with it.
Merged organizations pose an even larger challenge, when dissimilar policies and procedures must be harmonized.
Ask yourself
As your organization has adapted to the challenging financial times, have you:
- Assessed the impact of changed and eliminated positions across your organization on privacy governance?
- Considered whether your privacy office is still adequately equipped to deal with the organization’s key risks and compliance obligations?
