How CCPA is Changing the Face of Data Security

It can be an understatement to say that almost every organization today is dealing with data overload, productivity barriers and departmental silos. With a higher number of organizations investing heavily in information collection and data warehousing, they are finding it challenging to build data systems and make sense of it all. Unfortunately, although data is the lifeblood of almost every organization, with more data comes added ambiguity. It also brings with it a higher risk of data breaches. So what then is the best way to handle information in this age of information mobility? 

Given that privacy laws are expanding across the world and also in the United States, a new law came into effect that could have severe liabilities for any organization which holds classified customer data, including personally identifiable information (PII) of customers and other sensitive data. This new act that was introduced on January 1, 2020, is the California’s Consumer Privacy Act [CCPA]. This act will not only affect companies in California but also organizations across the United States doing business in California. 

Even before the Covid pandemic hit markets across the world, global companies were still reeling under the onslaught of cyberattacks. The world ahead is slated to be different than it was in the previous decades as opposed to past decades. A new post-coronavirus environment will bring with it new dangers, compliance issues, data security realities and lawsuits emerging from data breaches. CCPA offers customers an express private right of action if their confidential information has been accessed without authorization or disclosed in a data security breach.

This new CCPA law incorporates some elements of GDPR and involves a broader view of confidential information in securing PII. Almost every company, regardless of its size, must ensure that the storage, transmission and management of sensitive customer and organizational data must be guaranteed stringently. And while the new law is put in place to improve privacy rights and customer security for Californian residents, just as it is with other laws enacted in the state, CCPA will also affect every business across the country and the rest of the world doing business with Californian companies. The rule also applies to organizations even if they do not have employees residing in California or offices based in California but do business with organizations based in the state. Aimed to secure the information privacy rights of people living in California, CCPA will now force organizations to offer more data to customers on what is being done with their information, thus giving consumers added control over how their data is being shared.

Given the mass adoption of various remote collaboration tools, organizations may now need to relook into their data security processes that they may have implemented in the past to ensure data security. New applications that allow individuals to share confidential information and record data could mean that the data threat landscape has potentially exploded. In that regard, companies must install robust and proactive safeguards that secure sensitive data including their trade secrets, intellectual property, customer and client credentials, financial information and any other information subject to regulatory compliance concerns such as GDPR and CCPA. And as many companies are now discovering that compliance can be complicated, the one real proactive data security solution that not only safeguards your protected documents regardless of where it lies but also satisfies and ticks all the boxes in compliance and legal requirements is digital rights management (DRM). 

PDF DRM not only minimizes the scope of stringent and wide-reaching regulations, but it can also help to render your protected documents useless to cybercriminals, insider threats, hackers and regulation scope. Through DRM document security, you can eliminate every threat of data risk and cut down the cost of compliance drastically. Once data is protected through DRM, it becomes impossible for a cybercriminal or malicious insider to engineer the information, thus making the possibility of a data breach a non-issue for any organization regardless of its size.

DRM is useful for companies in highly regulated industries that put data security and privacy at the forefront. The more companies adopt digital rights management in securing their data, the safer their confidential information transactions will become, thus enabling such organizations to freely conduct business without having to concern themselves about regulation and data breaches. DRM can allow you to uncover common security flaws and apply industry standards and best practices for fine-grained access control, secure management of confidential data, and securing classified information. Built on layers of security to keep your personal data safe, DRM ensures security, privacy, and quality don’t have to conflict.

Leave a Comment