5 Benefits of PII Compliance for Australian Organization’s Legal Department

Compliance regulations are transforming how Australian companies handle sensitive personal data. With the increase in how much data flows through businesses, personally Identifiable Information (PII) compliance simplifies and secures the management of that data flow, protecting your clients’ personal information.

Securing and protecting that data benefits not just the people it identifies but also your company.

Embracing the changes to PII compliance builds a future of trust and loyalty while unifying your data management processes.

Learn how PII compliance impacts Australian businesses and how ensuring you adhere to the latest PII laws protects your business.

Key Takeaways:

• PII compliance protects personally identifiable information such as names, contact information, and payment information.

• Safeguarding personal information keeps your company from expensive data breaches and penalties.

• Companies that remain PII compliant see greater customer trust and loyalty.

What Is PII Compliance?

PII compliance is storage and data governance legislation that protects information that identifies people.

PII privacy regulations encompass data showing:

• Social Security numbers
• Names
• Contact information (address, email, phone)
• Payment information
• Medical history
• Financial details
• Employment History
• And more

PII compliance protects individuals and doesn’t include business names and contacts. It also doesn’t include details that are generic enough not to identify a specific individual, such as a person’s gender, age, religion, or race.

However, those quasi-identifiers, or identifiers that don’t identify a person on their own, can sometimes become PII.

For instance, postal code, birthday, and gender are three quasi-identifiers that, together, can identify 87% of people.

PII Compliance Examples

Notable global PII compliance standards include:

• HIPAA
• PCI DSS
• GDPR
• COPPA

Each standard defines PII a little differently, so you need to check with the compliance standards in your region. The standards are also changing quickly due to advancements in technology that transform how we collect, store, and share data.

PII does have some gray areas, especially with online tracking.

For instance, a person’s IP address and third-party cookies do not directly reveal identity, but some other countries consider them to be PII.

Staying on top of PII compliance as technology adds new trackers and identifiers helps you stay compliant, protect your clients, and avoid penalties.

PII compliance is more than just a positive legal practice. It’s a fundamental human right to privacy and security that your legal ops team can offer clients through careful data management and governance practices.

5 Ways PII Compliance Benefits Legal Ops and GCs

Changing PII compliance may frustrate legal ops and GCs who juggle large amounts of data daily during legal eDiscovery and other research and analytic practices. You also have data stored across dozens of systems and drives from years of outdated practices that worked during the dawn of technology.

However, technology has kept moving forward while many data management processes are struggling to keep up.

Most businesses couldn’t even locate all the PII data due to the sheer amount floating in their databases.

Despite the daunting odds, PII compliance is in your best interest and benefits your department. Surprisingly, tackling that mountain of scattered data is easier than you may realize, thanks to new technology built around the latest PII compliance regulations.

Here are five key benefits of adhering to PII compliance for your legal ops. You can realize these benefits by employing PII compliance technology to identify, secure, and redact personal information in your databases.

1. Improves Data Security

PII compliance protects the data you gather and manage. Rather than having that data floating around without knowing whose hands it may end up in, you create systems that keep it secure. That way, you always know where the PII data is in your systems.

For example, by adding encryption, access control, and secure data storage to your online processes, you can exchange information without worrying about where that data might end up after the exchange.

2. Increases Customer Trust

Only 21% of people globally trust businesses with their data.

PII compliance will shake up those numbers. More customers will entrust their information to you, providing more crucial data for your firm if you have proven you have the proper precautions to protect their identity and privacy.

3. Avoids Legal Penalties

Data breaches in 2023 cost businesses $9.48 million on average. Between penalties, lost loyalties, and repair costs, data breaches are a financial drain.

Adhering to PII compliance costs less and is much safer than risking penalties and eventual fallout from unsecured data and public personal data.

4. Unifies Data Practices

PII compliance prepares your data for all uses. Whether collecting client information for business use or creating files for cases, PII compliance ensures you remain accountable and all data receives the same protection and necessary redaction during legal document review.

5. Promotes Innovation and Advancements

PII compliance isn’t the problem – it’s the solution.

While new rules and regulations seem to restrict how you can store and use data, you’ll ultimately find that they open new opportunities.

Exigent offers automated legal tools that search, extract, redact, and store PII. These tools simplify data management and enhance privacy protection, making compliance easier and more efficient than before standardized practices became a thing.

Start Protecting Your Data Today

Does PII compliance feel overwhelming?

Do your legal ops team already struggle to accomplish their daily task, let alone add PII compliance to their to-do list?

Exigent’s PII Compliance solutions are here to streamline the process. Our advanced tool skillfully navigates through your data, locating, extracting, and reporting PII efficiently. This saves you hours otherwise spent sifting through digital information in your database.

Our tool doesn’t stop there. It takes it further, redacting PII to ensure you remain compliant, protect customers, and avoid penalties.

Contact us to learn more about our PII compliance tools.

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