Privacy professionals will know first hand the importance of conducting regular staff privacy training, which can mitigate customer privacy complaints and (as a result) the overall costs of privacy compliance. I certainly know from my practice that the costs to businesses can be quite significant when having to deal with serious privacy complaints. These costs can include settlements, legal fees and lost productivity. Obviously, it’s better to be proactive and reduce the chances of having to deal with privacy complaints. That’s where regular staff privacy training comes in! Businesses really should conduct staff privacy training on a regular basis – in my view, at least on an annual basis.
In a recent speech to the 10th Annual Privacy and Security Conference in Victoria, B.C., Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart commented, “Polling for my Office in 2007 found that only a third of all businesses reported having trained staff about their responsibilities under Canada’s privacy laws. This is a huge concern! We recently conducted an analysis of 86 breaches reported to my Office and found that employee awareness and training was the most important contributing factor. It was an issue in more than half of the spills we examined! We found that very basic mistakes – human errors – often lead to breaches. Breaches are caused mostly by employee misconduct and human error, not technological weaknesses.” The full speech is entitled, “A Privacy Check Up For Canadians: Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full?” and is definitely worth reading.
