09 Feb The Importance of Consumer Privacy Compliance
Everyone has had this experience. You just recently searched for something online or talked about a product with friends, and now seemingly every advertisement you get after is for that same specific product! How does this happen? How do companies track your recent internet searches and know when to target you? The answer lies in one of the biggest technological debates of the last decade: consumer data privacy.
Data is Key
Companies can track your recent searches and target you with specific ads through your computer’s data and cookies. Cookies are small pieces of data stored on a user’s computer by the web browser while browsing a website.
Cookies were designed to be an easy way for computers to remember easy bits of information and your browsing history. By storing and providing companies with your data and cookies, you receive ads tailored to the items you most recently searched for.
Consumer Privacy Makes Waves
As a response to greater data storage and selling, the California Consumer Privacy Act was passed and signed into law in 2018 to enhance privacy rights and consumer protections.
This law allows consumers to demand to see all the information a company has stored about them and a full list of all the outside parties their data is shared with. Consumers are also allowed to sue companies if the privacy guidelines are violated, regardless of whether a data breach occurs.
One of the most notable and visible changes due to this law is the footer present on every website giving consumers a choice to opt-in or out of data sharing. This is one of many steps companies must take to comply or face severe legal and financial issues.
Why Compliance Matters
The new law gives companies 30 days to comply once regulators notify them of a violation. If the issue isn’t resolved, there’s a fine of up to $7,500 per record. When you think of the number of records affected in a breach, the penalty can increase rapidly.
Not only the amount lost in a breach, but consumers can sue companies for not complying with the data sharing option they chose. Overall, not complying with the law can spell significant trouble for any company.
Making Compliance Simpler
While compliance saves companies time and money compared to dealing with lawsuits, the process of compliance can become expensive and time-consuming. Increased regulations can lead to an increased financial burden and devotion of staff hours to compliance for companies, but CognitiveOps Privacy delivers an integrated and automated approach.
CognitiveOps Privacy was developed as a way to streamline the compliance process. By learning and redacting personal information, CognitiveOps Privacy automates the entire process and provides automated reports to consumers when needed. To learn more about how CognitiveOps can deliver an end-to-end automated compliance solution for your business, contact us today.
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