Wood for the trees - 3 states of data

There has been so much written and said about the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation that we're all probably blinded and bored by now. So let’s look at it from another angle.

Let's look at it from the D for data - as that is ultimately what it is all about.

A quick win - a match - that sorts all your paper work in a strike. Perhaps not too practical...

How anyone can be confident of managing paper records these days in this information age is beyond me. Time to scan those files, and index and access using your IT systems instead.

So, ignoring paper records, let’s look at electronic data, and let’s think that it can be in one of 3 states.

INERT - Data is where you expect it to be, does what you want it to do, and at the end of the day is still there and ready for you to return to it tomorrow. This ideally is every day.

STOLEN - A third party comes and steals your data, typically through a cyber-attack. Well with the correct security solutions these days can be minimised, and hopefully stopped in their tracks.

LOST - An employee loses data as part of their day to day work. With the right education and training we can modify people's behaviours to again minimise the risk to your business.

So, if we can minimise STOLEN and LOST more days in the year will have your data in an INERT state. Simple.

If all businesses focussed in on this concept then the route to being GDPR compliant is an easy one and the risk of a data breach is reduced.