Running a successful privacy program and creating internal alignment is not an easy task.
In fact, the following scenario might feel familiar.
In the run-up to the enforcement of GDPR, interest in privacy matters was soaring at your organisation. The stakes were high to deliver on compliance.
With the May 25 ‘deadline’, the buzz came and went. Yet, the workload, compliance risks, and need for company-wide alignment on privacy remained.
Your job as a privacy professional might even have become harder.
You were still asked to deliver on full compliance. But with less active involvement from leadership, less resources, and possibly less-motivated internal stakeholders. (This is a topic we covered in a previous guide.)
The challenge for privacy professionals
With this new reality, running a privacy program can prove difficult.
You may need to drive collaboration, delegate privacy tasks, and repair faulty in-house processes – sometimes just to get up to speed.
Even if you’ve already started your privacy program and you’re feeling daunted by taking a step back to re-align, it’s important to remember that many companies are in this phase.
So, what are the steps to privacy program efficiency?
It all begins with an action-based roadmap that aligns stakeholders. Especially with some of the momentum slowing on privacy programmes, taking time to execute on the following actions will increase pay-back on your efforts long-term.
Here are five steps to consider:
1) Prioritise based on risk
Where to start? Prioritise based on the level of risk associated with certain processing flows in your organisation. This can be helpful in identifying the starting point.
2) Check-in and realign
Set a realistic agenda for the desired level of compliance with privacy regulations. In addition, agree together on what areas should be prioritised.
3) Delegate
Establish an action plan to deliver on missing records of processing, data access points, flows, etc.
4) Set measurable KPIs
Once you’ve developed an action plan which has been delegated to relevant internal stake-holders, you’ll need to agree on key indicators, as well as meaningful checkboxes to track your progress by.
5) Get a tool that works
In today’s digital business world, the easiest and most cost-effective way to align efforts and achieve coordinated action lies with a software tool.
We recommend a deep-dive into our guide to learn more about jump-starting your privacy program.
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