Last updated on August 24, 2015
Does the thought of making your business privacy complaint seem like … the last item on your priority list?
But becoming privacy compliant is not an option for most businesses — it’s the law.
Not being prepared with the appropriate privacy policies and procedures can cost your business dearly in the form of legal services, deteriorating company image, and loss of business revenue.
One of the quickest and most surest ways of becoming privacy complaint is by hiring a privacy lawyer and getting it done right the first time.
The Benefits of Hiring a Privacy Lawyer
Your business has other options for ensuring privacy compliance. For example, you can hire a privacy officer. However, there are numerous immediate benefits by hiring the services of an experienced legal professional.
1. Get it Done Right — Right Away
Hiring a privacy lawyer means expertise immediately within your reach. Sure, they may cost more initially, but your business will benefit by having results that you can count on now.
2. Developing Policies and Procedures
A privacy lawyer is able to create policies and procedures for the collection, usage, disclosure, and management of personal information that is consistent with your business processes.
You can rest assured that your policies and procedures will be developed using best practices and backed by a professional.
3. Understanding Tricky, Cross-Border Issues
Many businesses are large, diverse, and have offices scattered throughout the globe.
For example, your business may collect personal information from people in Canada, process that information in India where labour is cheap, and finally store the information in a data warehouse in the U.S.
When personal information crosses borders and is subject to difference privacy legislation, it is vital to have a privacy lawyer review your situation to ensure you are aware of your risks and responsibilities and are compliant in each area.
4. Responding to Access Requests and Complaints
What happens when you receive a nightmare access request? — a customer who knows privacy legislation inside out is demanding volumes of records containing personal information and is demanding information about how his data is collected, used, stored, and deleted.
On top of that, he’s also threatening to make a complaint with the privacy commissioner if you do not provide a satisfactory response within thirty days.
What do you do?
What if you make a mistake?
Are you prepared to handle difficult privacy access requests and complaints?
5. Mitigating a Privacy Breach
Everyone knows about the financial damage that TJX corporation suffered when it failed to provide adequate security measures to protect the personal information it had collected.
A privacy lawyer can mitigate the chances of a privacy breach which has the power to cripple your business. If your business has already suffered a privacy breach, a privacy lawyer can help minimize its impact.
6. Privacy Training
For larger and more specialized organizations, training privacy officers, employees, and creating educational materials needs to be done properly. Some businesses can simply not afford to make mistakes.
Privacy training done properly will create knowledgeable, trained employees and reduce the risks of an employee making a careless mistake with your business’ sensitive information.
7. Contracts
Perhaps most importantly, a privacy lawyer can assess, create, or modify your legal contracts to ensure that your business is legally covered in its business activities when collecting, using, and disclosing personal information.
Finding a Privacy Lawyer
Take a look at the law firms in your area and see what services they offer. PrivacySense will soon offer a free privacy lawyer directory to facilitate finding a privacy lawyer.
Conclusion
Privacy law is relatively young and not fully understood by a majority of businesses. Although hiring a privacy lawyer can seem expensive on the onset, your business will save valuable time and costs in the long-run and will get started on the right foot by having dependable professional resources from an experienced law firm.
Once your business has employed the use of a privacy lawyer, continuing to use one can be an ongoing, costly expense. Consider using the resources of a privacy lawyer to properly hire and train a privacy officer to handle the management of personal information in your business.
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