'With the accelerated move to work from anywhere, privacy has taken on greater importance in driving digitization, corporate resiliency, agility and innovation'
Sixty per cent of organizations say they weren't prepared for privacy and security requirements involved in the shift to remote work, according to a recent survey.
And 87 per cent of consumers expressed concerns about the privacy protections of the tools they needed to use to work, interact and connect remotely.
“Privacy and the larger cybersecurity ecosystem will play a key role in the road to economic growth and COVID-19 pandemic recovery,” according to the Cisco report 2021 Data Privacy Benchmark Study. “As economies and communities begin to recover, many important challenges will arise that will test how governments, companies, and individuals collect, manage and protect personal data while balancing individual rights with public interest.”
Nearly six in 10 organizations have accelerated their digital transformations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an IBM survey released in October 2020.
Nearly six in 10 (57 per cent) of employees support employers using data to help make workplaces safe, finds the Cisco survey. But less than half supported location tracking, contact tracing, disclosing information about infected individuals and using individual information for research, found the survey of 4,400 security and privacy professionals across 25 countries.
"Privacy has come of age – recognized as a fundamental human right and rising to a mission-critical priority for executive management," says Harvey Jang, Cisco vice president and chief privacy officer. "And with the accelerated move to work from anywhere, privacy has taken on greater importance in driving digitization, corporate resiliency, agility, and innovation."
Nine in 10 (90 per cent) of organizations are now reporting privacy metrics to their C-suites and boards.
Canadian HR Reporter previously spoke with Mark Gaudet, product manager at Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) in Ottawa, about how employers can help employees deal with cybersecurity troubles.
Nearly all (97 per cent) Canadian businesses say their cybersecurity strategies will shift as a result of the increased digitization during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 56 per cent expect to increase their cyber budgets, according to a report from PwC Canada released last month.
