Data Privacy – continuing the debate and Apple’s new privacy solution

One year after the date of implementation of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), TechRepublic recently published the results of a global survey on data privacy. It found that 51% of survey respondents said that their IT department was responsible for their data privacy. 21%  reported that their privacy leader was their chief information officer (CIO) or chief technology officer (CTO); 16% had a specific Data Protection Officer (DPO); 11% a chief information security officer (CISO); 8% had appointed a chief privacy officer (CPO), and 5% used their general counsel/chief legal officer (CLO). 19% of respondents were unsure who their privacy leader was, 16% replied “other,” and 5% said their organization was in the process of creating a position for this task. Respondents admitted that corporate culture (37%), lack of knowledge (35%), financial cost (33%) or lack of resources (33%), integration with existing tools (28%), and lack of either technical skills (25%) or leadership (24%) were preventing adequate response to data protection.

Others blamed the complexity of privacy legislation (18%), the lack of available technology (8%), or a business model that relies on user surveillance (8%) as challenges to enabling data privacy. For the Europeans, 16% of applicable respondents admitted that their organizations were not meeting requirements of the GDPR, which should have been fully implemented in May 2019, 16% were still in the process of meeting requirements, or they were unsure (26%) about their company’s compliance; 35% claimed theywere meeting all GDPR requirements.

Meanwhile, Apple are set to disrupt the advertising industry, after launching their latest privacy update that can prevent tracking and targeted ads.