Signs it is time to revisit data privacy

This is one of those topics that looks small until it costs you something. A few signals that data privacy is due some attention.

The realistic threat for most small businesses is automated and opportunistic, not targeted. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• Collect only what you can justify keeping
• Deletion policies matter as much as collection ones

How we handle it

Know where personal data actually lives. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

What this looks like day to day

The cheapest security work is the boring kind done on a schedule. Three things worth confirming about data privacy before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Collect only what you can justify keeping — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.