Honor Your Customers' Privacy: Six tips

Kandace Heller

November 05, 2013

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Would you do business with a company that didn't make the effort to keep your private information private? If a company had a reputation for failing to protect customer data, would you take the risk and enter your credit card number on their website? If you answered no, you have something in common with virtually all modern consumers. If you own a business, failing to protect data can lead to hefty fines and even a PR disaster. One way to build trust with your customer base is to go above and beyond when it comes to protecting confidential data. Revisit how you're honoring your customers' privacy, and use these six tips to your advantage.

#1: Keep Paper Documents That Cannot be Shredded in Locked Cabinets

In some industries, agents are required by law to keep physical applications and agreements filed for a specified number of years. If you don't have these physical documents, you can be penalized or even lose your license. For businesses in these industries, investing in high-quality tamper-proof cabinets until the documents can be shredded. Only trusted employees should be given access to these cabinets.

#2: Make Sure All of Your Employees Know How to Store Digital Data Safely

Computers have made it much easier to save files and store data, but keeping data safe on computers can be a challenge when your company doesn't take a holistic approach to data protection. It's very common for an owner to assign an IT team to safeguarding data, but employees also need to take part in storing and accessing data properly. If you're not making sure the entire company is involved, there could be a data breach.

#3: How Are You Encrypting Data?

You don't even have to be a certified IT technician to know that customer data needs to be encrypted. While encryption isn't a secret, many companies aren't using up-to-date software programs to ensure that encryption is taking place when every employee accesses the customer's file from their laptop, desktop, or mobile device. If you're not sure if you're using whole-disk or file-level programs, you need to sit down and decide which program is appropriate for the needs of your business.

#4: There Are Technologies That Monitor Your Data

You might be able to invest in functional seismic cabinets to protect your servers from vibrations, but you can't keep an eye on data. If you want to monitor and track customer data, you can install programs that will look over activity and prevent data from being compromised. Some Data Loss Prevention programs specifically monitor emails to prevent employees from sending out confidential data, and others prevent files from being stolen inadvertently.

#5: Keep Your Cloud Storage in Mind

Keeping your data stored in the cloud is a convenient way to prevent losing everything, but you have to consider the cloud vendor you choose to ensure your customer's data isn't going to be vulnerable. Make sure that the vendor uses the best practices to keep your data secure, and then you can make this same promise to your customers.

#6: Keep Your Logs to Solve Issues

Data logs help system administrators identify the cause of problems when customer data is compromised. If you're only keeping the logs for a month, be sure to change this policy. Keeping these logs for at least a year will ensure that you can see patterns when your network is being breached.

No one wants to worry about their information being stolen from a company they trust. Make sure to give your customers peace of mind by following these tips. By safeguarding data, you can make your relationship with your customers strong.