In the age of digital technology – where data is growing exponentially and is becoming the new oil, protecting sensitive data has become more crucial than ever before. Data protection is a set of guidelines and procedures designed to prevent data loss or corruption. This ensures the integrity and availability of the data.
The following are the most fundamental principles of data protection:
1. Data availability – Ensuring that data is always available to users, whether they are stored online or offline. This includes storing, accessing and securing data according to its context and sensitivity in order that it is always accessible for reporting, analysis, development and testing.
2. Data management – Ensuring the data is handled in accordance with business and regulatory requirements. This includes preventing unauthorised data access by implementing policies like role-based access control and encryption, which ensures that only authorized users have access to data. It also means limiting access to data using tools, like use logging and classification of files that enable companies to monitor who is using the documents and how they are being utilized.
3. Privacy of data – ensuring that personal data are processed in a lawful, fair, and transparent manner, and ensuring individuals are fully informed about the purpose of their data. It also includes limiting the collection of personal data to only what is necessary for the intended purpose, and avoiding unnecessary processing.
Data protection is complicated however, with the right system and execution, it can be made easy and effective. The key to establishing an efficient system of organization is to identify specific goals including ensuring the GDPR’s compliance as well as making sure that personal data is secure. From there the system can be developed and implemented using software tools that streamline the process.