Ideas to Foster Privacy Awareness

One thing every privacy officer should be concerned about is the proper handling of personal information in an organization.

Your organization can spend thousands of dollars on high-tech solutions to protect personal information but all it takes is a careless slip by an employee to cause a massive privacy breach.

This is why employees need constant reminders about the importance of handling personal information properly and why privacy officers need solid ideas to foster privacy awareness in their organization.

Here are some creative ideas for privacy officers:

Write for the Company Newsletter

Most medium-to-large sized organizations have a company newsletter that gets circulated through the office. This is a great opportunity for privacy officers to have a presence and deliver privacy-related information to employees at regular intervals.

Provide Practical Tips

Chances are, many of the employees in your organization manage online profiles such as Facebook. Use this opportunity to show employees how to keep their profiles private and show them what type of personal information they should not share with the entire world.

Show Consequences for Failing to Comply with Policies and Procedures

Policies and procedures are easier to comply with if employees know why they should be following them.

For example, if your organization uses a document destruction policy to instruct employees to shred all paperwork containing sensitive information, you can refer to news stories where employees have contributed to a privacy breach by throwing personal information into a dumpster rather than using the shredder.

Report on Privacy News

Privacy news, especially if it is relevant to your industry, may interest many of your employees. You may choose to provide snippets from articles or rewrite and summarize news stories for your audience.

Mention Changes in Policies and Procedures

A “what’s new” section may be an effective place to remind employees about changes to policies and procedures.

Make Privacy Officers Open and Accessible

Consider publishing the names and contact information of all privacy officers in the organization.

Depending on the size of your organization, you may also consider posting a picture and location of the privacy officers in the office. Employees will feel more comfortable approaching privacy officers if they know who they are, where they are located, and if they are open to questions, comments, and suggestions.

Another thing to consider is having your organization create an email specifically designated for privacy related inquiries (e.g. privacy@yourbusiness.com). This will ensure that employees always remember where to send inquiries via email.

Deliver Introductory and Refresher Privacy Training

Whenever possible, deliver introductory and refresher privacy training in person. This will allow you to meet employees and promote privacy awareness on a personal level.

Write an F.A.Q. Document

After a few years there will be numerous questions that will be frequently asked by employees. Consider creating a Frequently Asked Questions document and putting it online or making it available in hard-copy.