Cisco’s 2021 Data Privacy Benchmark Study that looks into corporate privacy practices found enhanced importance of privacy protections during the pandemic and increasing benefits for businesses that adopt strong privacy measures.
The independent, anonymized survey analyzed the responses of 4,400 security and privacy professionals across 25 countries and explored attitudes towards privacy legislation and the emergence of privacy metrics being reported to executive management.
Privacy is much more than just a compliance issue as businesses now see it as a fundamental human right and a mission-critical C-suite priority.
60 percent of organizations say they weren’t prepared for privacy and security requirements involved in the shift to remote work
93 percent of organizations turned to their privacy teams to help navigate these challenges
87 percent of consumers expressed concerns about the privacy protections of the tools they needed to use to work, interact and connect remotely
90 percent of organizations now reporting privacy metrics to their C-suites and boards
There is a clear shift in the market towards standardizing privacy as a non-negotiable requirement when digitizing and advancing business objectives.
More than 140 jurisdictions have now passed omnibus privacy laws, and nearly 80 percent of respondents found these laws to have a positive impact
Most people are fine with sharing health information for workplace safety and pandemic response, but are uncomfortable with other uses such as research.
57 percent supported employers using data to help make workplaces safe, while less than half supported location tracking, contact tracing, disclosing information about infected individuals, and using individual information for research
Privacy and the larger cybersecurity ecosystem will play a key role in the road to economic growth and COVID-19 pandemic recovery.
As economies and communities begin to recover, many important challenges will arise that will test how governments, companies, and individuals collect, manage and protect personal data while balancing individual rights with public interest
Privacy investment continues to be attractive, with 75 percent of organizations seeing significant business value in terms of mitigating security losses, enhanced agility and innovation, improved operational efficiency, and improved customer loyalty and trust
Over one-third of organizations are getting benefits at least twice their investment
“Privacy has come of age – recognized as a fundamental human right and rising to a mission-critical priority for executive management,” noted Cisco vice president and chief privacy officer, Harvey Jang. “With the accelerated move to work from anywhere, privacy has taken on greater importance in driving digitization, corporate resiliency, agility, and innovation.”
