What's the cost of data processing and data privacy?
The cost of data processing and data privacy can vary significantly depending on various factors such as the scale of data, the complexity of processing operations, regulatory requirements, the level of security needed, and the technologies employed.
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One incontrovertible fact, however, is that the cost of non-compliance can be many times more than the cost of compliance.
Beyond the hard costs of hardware, staff salaries and potential ICO fines, there are hidden costs such as company reputation, customer retention and staff productivity.
A data processing and privacy costs checklist
It is essential for organisations to conduct assessments and cost-benefit analyses to determine the most effective strategies for data processing and privacy within their budget constraints.
1. Data processing costs:
Infrastructure:
Hardware, software and cloud services needed to store and process data.
Personnel:
Hiring skilled professionals such as data engineers, IT personnel and compliance staff is a major cost.
Data management tools:
Investing in data management tools and platforms for processing and analysing data.
Data quality:
Ensuring data quality through cleansing and validation processes.
2. Data privacy costs:
Compliance:
Meeting regulatory requirements such as GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA and other data protection laws involves costs related to compliance audits, legal consultations and implementing necessary measures.
Security measures:
Implementing robust security measures to protect data from unauthorised access and breaches.
Training and awareness:
Educating employees about data privacy policies and procedures to prevent accidental data breaches and ensure compliance.
Incident response:
Establishing procedures and protocols for handling data breaches or privacy incidents, which may involve investigation costs, legal fees and compensation for affected individuals.
Insurance:
Some companies opt to purchase insurance to mitigate the financial risks associated with data breaches and privacy violations.
While there are costs associated with ensuring data privacy and security, the potential consequences of failing to protect sensitive data can far outweigh these expenses in terms of financial losses, reputational damage, and legal liabilities.
Therefore, investing in robust data privacy measures is often considered a necessary expense for businesses operating in today's data-driven environment.
What are the hidden costs of data and privacy processing?
One of the largest potential costs associated with data privacy is a fine for breaching compliance regulations. Another unpredictable, potentially ruinous cost is lost revenue that results from a collapse of trust among customers.
We are all familiar with hidden costs. When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Airline prices are currently in the news, for example. Advertised airfares look like great deals until add-ons such as priority boarding, seat selection, baggage, in-flight refreshments and taxes are factored in.
In business, typical hidden costs include administrative costs such as taxes and insurance, and operational costs for technology and licences.
In data, it Is not always simple to quantify costs or to foresee how costs might escalate.
Estimating the cost of compliance
Data privacy can carry a huge price, which cannot always be quantified because the implications are vast. Many organisations struggle to calculate the cost of complying with GDPR.
Data breaches can be costly for companies of any size. Investment in data protection is necessary at all levels, including encryption, access control and data redaction. Fines, legal fees, and the loss of business are all potential consequences of failing to meet regulatory requirements.
Organisations may face cross-border compliance challenges that require monitoring and frequent audits.
Enabling technologies reduce compliance risks and costs
Compliance carries a significant cost that involves the need for dedicated professionals and enabling technologies to minimise risk.
Investing in compliance reduces the risk of non-compliance problems such as business disruption, fees, penalties and settlement costs.
Whatever the cost of compliance, the cost of non-compliance is considerably more, as the losses that result from data privacy failures go beyond a monetary value.
The true cost, or value, of data privacy is trust established with customers, stakeholders and the public.
In a technology-aware era, as soon as people realise that their data is not secure, organisations risk a loss of trust that results in massive business disruption.
Data privacy is a priority for everyone
Data privacy is a top priority for everyone: consumers, employees, businesses and not-for-profit organisations. There is great demand for control over personal data, and for transparency from data processors.
Data processing solutions should encompass how personal data is collected, processed, stored, shared, retained and purged.
An example of how the full cost of compliance can be hidden involves data redaction. When organisations share data in documents, video or audio files with each other or third-parties, it is important that personal data is properly protected.
It is essential to remove or redact personal data; for example, when an organisation fulfils a data subject access request. Choosing the most effective and efficient redaction method greatly affects the true cost to the organisation.
Automation reduces data processing costs
Data is only valuable if it is stored, accessed and processed efficiently, and secured.
The cost of liberating data includes hardware, software and maintenance; while the cost of data security includes firewalls. Another cost arises from extracting insights and value from data by using BI tools, with their associated fees and training requirements.
However, not all data costs are apparent, and some of the hidden costs of data can be reduced.
As data increases in size and complexity, professionals spend too much of their limited time searching for or processing data. The cost of inefficiency is significant, in the form of wasted employee time, as well as the cost of delays or poor results.
Inefficiency often stems from employing manual processes to maintain data catalogues and to process data, when much of the work can be automated.
Using data platforms that automate data privacy processes reduces processing costs, and reduces time-to-value for data users.
Maximise the value of CCTV data
Under-budgeting for data processing is a false economy.
Facit specialises in technology that maximises the value of data captured over CCTV to generate business intelligence, as well as solutions to protect data and enable you to meet compliance regulations.
Organisations that do not make the most of installed camera assets are not exploiting business intelligence that is readily available to them about customer trends, queue management, building occupancy and potential threats or theft.
The claim that budgets are not available to capture business intelligence, or to process data in a compliant manner, ultimately suggests that businesses are not taking into account the true, sometimes hidden costs of data.
If manual processes are employed to generate essential business reports, on sales and customer behaviour, they will be more costly in real terms, and less accurate, than those generated using automation and AI.
In the case of compliance, using manual, unreliable or home-grown processes to redact data in documents and video footage necessarily involves significant staff costs and introduces a high risk of data breach.
How much is the data protection fee?
The annual fee depends on your size and turnover. It's £40 or £60 for most organisations, including charities and small and medium-sized businesses. The fee can be up to £2,900 for businesses that employ many people and have a high annual turnover.
Under the Data Protection Act 2018 organisations processing personal information are required to pay a data protection fee unless they are exempt.
You need to renew your data protection fee each year, or inform the ICO if your registration is no longer required. If you fail to do so, the ICO can issue a penalty of up to £4,000 on top of the fee you are required to pay.
It is the law to pay the fee, which funds the ICO’s work, but it also makes business sense because whether or not you have paid could have an impact on your reputation.
Businesses have been paying some form of data protection fee for more than 30 years. Today, many more sole traders and smaller organisations have fulfilled their legal requirement to register with the ICO than ever before.
The ICO’s register of fee payers represents more than 1 million companies.
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