CIO Perspectives with Mark Settle: It’s Time to Invest in a Privacy Tech Stack
CIO Perspectives” is a white paper series by Mark Settle that explores the top-of-mind technical issues confronting today’s CIOs and IT leaders. Mark is a seven-time CIO most recently at Okta, a three-time CIO 100 award winner, and a two-time book author. His most recent book is Truth from the Valley, A Practical Primer on IT Management for the Next Decade.
Privacy data is a form of kryptonite that can sap the superpowers of even the most well-run IT organization. The definition of privacy data is expanding, regulations are proliferating, court cases to clarify new regulations are being filed weekly and consumer concerns regarding the use of personal information are rising. In the meantime, in the pursuit of digital transformation IT organizations are deploying new collaboration tools, API integrations and cloud development environments that exchange and replicate data at a frightening pace. What could possibly go wrong?
CIOs need to face two hard facts. GDPR and CCPA compliance are not sufficient to protect their companies from the legal liabilities, financial consequences and brand impact of privacy data mismanagement. Furthermore, the security tools and processes they’ve put in place to avoid the theft of sensitive company information are not sufficient to prevent the mishandling of privacy data.
This white paper describes the functional capabilities of the tech stack that is emerging to safeguard the use and management of privacy data. It proposes alternative investment strategies for implementing tools that address the privacy-related needs and vulnerabilities of individual organizations. These investments cannot be deferred. As Bessemer Venture Partners has predicted, privacy debt will be the new tech debt of the 2020s.
