These assessments can be simplified using a PrivacyOps approach. This would require adopting:
- A system-of-knowledge that provides audit templates for various privacy regulations,
- A system-of-record to keep all assessments in one place,
- A system-of-collaboration to bring all stakeholders in one place to provide inputs, and
- A system-of-automation to automate workflows and streamline assessment processes.
Adopting these practices make the assessment process agile, easier to track, and up to date. These systems, when used effectively, can make it easier for stakeholders to collaborate and complete assessments, as well as share the reports with external parties under one secure platform. The following are the capabilities that each system needs to provide:
System of Knowledge
A knowledge base system that covers all data privacy regulations and policies with which an organization must comply. This serves as a reference and cross-checks if the organization complies with all these regulations and any assessment requirements. It leverages the following:
- A library of up-to-date and ready-made assessment templates, based on country or state and their corresponding regulations—like GDPR, CCPA, POPIA, etc.—all in one place.
- A knowledgebase of various global privacy laws and regulations.
- A library of custom assessment templates crafted and curated by an organization.
- Multi-regulation templates that ensure you comply with multiple regulations within a single audit.
System of Record
A system of record needs to maintain several following items for it to help conduct assessments:
- Assessments completed by multiple teams within an organization.
- Approval and audit records to provide proof of compliance and operational integrity.
- An assessment archive for record management and regulatory compliance
System of Collaboration
A collaboration system designed to help organizations maintain an efficient flow of data throughout the organization for assessments. The following are some of the advantages associated with maintaining a system of collaboration:
- Ease of assessment completion by stakeholders by allowing them to assign tasks to subject matter experts.
- Built-in chat and discussion option among subject matter experts and assessment owner to facilitate collaboration.
- Comprehensive workflows to engage various stakeholders.
- A robotic assistant that assists in tracking assessment and providing answers to basic questions about assessments.
System of Automation and Insights
An automation system that lies at the heart of a PrivacyOps platform, the system of automation will provide an organization:
- The ability to quickly map and create an assessment of responses about multiple regulations with a single response.
- Reminders for assessment updates.
- Regular privacy posture reports are sent to stakeholders.
- Analytics and tracking of assessment status.
- Trigger the risks by evaluating the responses to assessment questions.
- Monitor the assessments that organizations have shared with internal and external partners as well as the readiness and risk scores based on published assessments on the assessments dashboard.
- Automatically trigger a PIA or DPIA assessment when a new asset or process is added or any PD characteristic of asset changes.
- An intuitive reporting dashboard to understand the privacy maturity and posture of the organization.
