Customer Privacy Is A European CIO Priority

The ruling by the European Court of Justice in May 2014 that an individual can demand that "irrelevant or outdated" information is deleted from search results should remind chief information officers (CIOs) that privacy management is a top business priority. Privacy regulation is now a topic that no CIO should underestimate as a major risk factor for business. CIOs who underestimate privacy regulation risk fines for their organization, undermine their organization's reputation and trust, as well as risk losing their own jobs. We discussed privacy trends with various end user CIOs, security vendors, and compliance specialists such as Symantec and Nymity; professional services firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers and Capgemini; as well as data analytics firms like Google. The picture that emerged shows that CIOs who design their IT infrastructure with privacy regulation in mind will build a competitive advantage in the age of the customer.