Today’s report about the recent privacy survey jointly done by Carlson Marketing Canada and Ponemon Institute supports what most privacy proponents have been saying…that a good, strong, ethical privacy program will have a positive business impact. It is nice to have some formal studies to provide to business leaders to support the theory and make it more likely to become an accepted leading business practice.
Especially supportive of good compliance and privacy programs is the finding that companies who took a more personal touch, notifying individuals impacted by breaches directly by phone instead of postal mail and email, had less of a negative business impact that other businesses that took the easiest, least expensive means of notificationcontact. I would imagine that this would also mean that the businesses who spent more time and resources on person-to-person phone contacts for the notifications actually saved more by less lost business…but then, that would probably take another study to verify, wouldn’t it? 🙂
Ethics, and clear personal concern for impacted individuals, should be an important component of any privacy and compliance program; your customers will recognize these characteristics. You don’t want to be perceived as a privacy and ethics Grinch.
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