There has always been a need for protecting private data, but long gone are the days when sensitive customer documents were locked on a filing cabinet at the end of the workday. In our digital world, customers share more information about themselves than ever, across a variety of platforms. We often hear in media and at conferences about advances in technology to catch up with regulations on data protection. Yet we also continue to read about breaches like the Colonial Pipeline breach of May 7, 2021 and AXA Asia a week later. 

In this PodChats for FutureCIO, we speak to John Grimm, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, Data Protection Solutions, Entrust, on the topic of data privacy, data protection and what enterprises are doing right and wrong to comply with regulations and customer expectations.

Topics covered:

1.       The idea of data protection started as far back as 1890 when US lawyers, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, wrote the Right to Privacy. Arguably one of the biggest developments around privacy is GDPR in 2018. Three years, where is the holdup when it comes to upholding personal data privacy? 

2.       Before we go further, let’s start off with definitions. What is data protection? In a typical large enterprise, what does it encompass, and what is its relationship to data encryption?

3.       We continue to hear about high profile cyberattacks like the Colonial Pipeline and more recently 

AXA Asia. Why do organisations seem to struggle with their data protection strategies?

4.       Speaking of encryption, is there a magic number in terms of how many encryption tools is enough? You spoke of between 8 to 10 as average. 

5.       Environments have become more complex. Today enterprises operate in hybrid multi-cloud environments covering on-prem, private, public and edge.  The same goes for data encryption and data protection tools. How do you manage and effectively use this growing complexity that is the cloud and protecting it?

6.       Specific to the Ponemon Institute report, can you cite reasons why Southeast Asia ranked lowest globally in terms of encryption adoption (50% global average vs 36% in Southeast Asia)?

7.       How do you see encryption evolving? What can organisations do to better leverage encryption as the foundation for a more holistic data protection strategy?

8.       Gartner predicts that by 2023, 65% of the global population will have their personal information protected by data privacy laws. Given all the breaches that are occurring today, what needs to happen for this prediction to become a reality?

9.       In the digital economy, who owns the data? Is it the CIO, the CDO, the marketing department or the customer?

10.   What must enterprises do to rein back the perceived loss of control in data protection? And what should CIOs be doing to own part of the solution?

11.   Simplification vs the sprawl of solutions – what is Entrust’s USP (standout)?