Privacy Management? Child’s Play With Privacy Management

Do you see it coming, the new trend? The growing concern for data confidentiality? With the sharp rise in the number of cyberattacks, companies must take the necessary measures to protect their data and that of their employees, customers, and partners. They must also comply with the increasingly voluminous legislation on this subject. However, given the multiplication of work platforms (cloud, internal network, personal devices with teleworking, mobile devices) and applications used, complying with these regulations promises to be a terrible headache for small and medium-sized businesses. What if there was an effective, affordable, and intuitive tool to simplify your task? Discover Privacy Management from Microsoft, a tool that responds exactly to this problem of confidentiality management.

Why Is Data Privacy Important?

Data privacy is an increasingly important concern in our societies.

Many cyber attacks focus on obtaining personal data (data breaches). Often, they affect not one individual but a mass of people at once.

Hackers are primarily looking to obtain information that will give them access to bank accounts or identity theft opportunities. They can then steal money from their victims or spread spam and hate messages on social accounts, for example.

In recent years, regulations in many countries have been strengthened to require companies to better protect Internet users against these risks. In France, we are now subject to the European GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

But this is probably just the beginning, and other measures should follow quickly. Remember that a breach of the GDPR can result in a fine of up to €20 million or 4% of a company’s global annual turnover from the previous year.

Data privacy is, therefore, not a subject to be taken lightly. It is important to adopt appropriate measures now to integrate this concern into your procedures.

What Is Privacy Management In Microsoft 365?

Privacy Management is a tool integrated into the Compliance Center of the Microsoft 365 cloud office suite. It helps you implement the privacy policy that your company wants to implement in a simple and personalized way.

This module uses artificial intelligence to constantly assess the situation of your company with regard to the confidentiality of the personal data that you are called upon to store and handle on a daily basis.

You are, therefore, intervening proactively to remain in compliance with current legislation.

A Dashboard To Define Your Strategy

To do this, Privacy Management has a dashboard allowing you to assess the level of confidentiality of your company (volume of personal data collected within the company and location of this data in your information system) with the associated risks.

From this dashboard, you can take corrective action, for example, by limiting access to the files in question, deleting them, or notifying their authors. You also have the possibility of developing strategies to define specific responses in the event that an illegal exchange of personal data is detected, the presence of personal information is shared inappropriately, or it must be destroyed because your company no longer has any use for it.

Detection Of Exchanged Personal Data

Privacy Management automatically detects confidential data exchanges in your employees’ communications (between themselves or with external third parties). It inventories and tracks the personal data present in your files. Based on this inventory, it invites you to deploy measures to comply with the regulations.

This control takes place across all applications in the Microsoft 365 environment (Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Teams applications).

It is done in a contextual manner. For example, the tool may decide to block a message exchanged in Teams between one of your collaborators and their contact located in a different country if the privacy policy of one of these two countries prohibits this exchange. On the other hand, it will authorize it if the message is addressed to a recipient located in a country in which sharing this data is legal.

Privacy Management will similarly block messages exchanged in Teams between employees from different departments of the company if they violate the rules of your internal policy on sharing confidential data.

When this blocking occurs, the sender of the message receives an email notification warning them of the planned censorship as well as additional information, including the precise reason for the blocking. Thus, they can decide with full knowledge of the facts whether to continue sending, justifying their decision, or to let Teams notify their hierarchy.

An Analysis Of The Personal Data Present In Your Company

Privacy Management also analyses the volume of personal data held or exchanged within the company.

Those that pose potential risks (data that has not been used for a certain period of time that should be deleted or data that has been shared inappropriately) are subject to notifications to warn the corresponding users of the risks they are facing.

These notifications provide them with steps to take to address the situation. They also provide a link to an information page to invite them to learn best practices.

For example, if the software detects a credit card number entered into a file, it will contact the creator of the file to remind him of the existence of this confidential information. It will also advise him to refrain from entering his credit card number into a file.

Learn How To Develop Your Privacy Management.

The big strength of Privacy Management is that it gives all companies the means to take charge of the obligation of implementing privacy management by making it truly accessible.

There is no doubt that this helping hand and this simplification will be greatly appreciated by the most modest companies, for whom this constraint appears to be an impossible mission.

The tool allows you to gradually raise your employees’ awareness of confidentiality issues. Over time, they learn to identify the different types of confidential data and the questions to ask when handling personal data. This learning happens naturally on a daily basis without harming your company’s productivity.

Also Read: What To Do If You’ve Been Hacked?