Canadian Organizations Lead In Privacy

Forrester surveyed security decision-makers at organizations in Europe and North America to determine their approach and progress in protecting data privacy. Government regulations, and the potential fines and penalties for noncompliance, provide the biggest drivers for privacy professionals. These liabilities were of greatest concern in both the US and the UK. Overall, organizations are most likely to designate their heads of IT as responsible for privacy efforts, but a striking 49% of German corporations employ a chief privacy officer. When questioned about specific business practices, Canadian companies were most likely to follow best practices such as creating a formal privacy program, including more than personal data in their privacy policies, training employees about privacy, and tracking any privacy policy exceptions. In the years to come, privacy officers will become more prevalent in Europe and Canada because of their regulatory requirements, whereas CIOs will lead the charge for privacy protection in the US where regulations are important but aren't the only privacy drivers.