FOSTERING A POSITIVE INFORMATION PRIVACY CULTURE ONE LOCATION AT A TIME

A global client in the machinery and equipment business recently asked Mobius Consulting to facilitate Information Privacy awareness training across its various sites in 8 Provinces across the country. Mobius has previously assisted this client in completing a Privacy Gap assessment and subsequently, is currently assisting with the implementation of remediation activities that were recommended as part of the gap assessment roadmap report. Information Privacy training and awareness forms one of the key activities that the client deems as the cornerstone for fostering a positive privacy culture.

As such, the objective of the project was to ensure that employees of the client are trained to understand their role when it comes to the protection of personal information because employees collect and process volumes of personal information in order to support business processes and operations as well as to administer and deliver services and products to customers. So by ensuring that each employee is trained to understand how they can protect personal information in line with applicable in-country and global data protection legislations – the client reduces the risk of non-compliance with these legislations and protects its customer, vendor and employee personal information.

So, the mandate for this project was simple –

help us to enlighten and our employees of the importance of protecting the personal information that they process in their daily roles as employees of the company

help us to highlight the risks associated with failing to protect personal information

equip our employees with practical tools on how to protect personal information.

With this mandate in mind Mobius travelled to the various locations and sites where the client operates to, amongst other things:

train and teach the employees on laws, industry best practices and standards for the protection of personal information.

train and teach the employees on available company policies, processes and procedures that enable the protection of personal information in the client’s environment.

train the employees on their data subject rights as well as equip them on how to exercise these rights

This project highlighted to us yet again that it is important for companies to not only focus on developing processes and policies but remember that training on those policies and processes is what really makes a difference. When people know what to do it is easier to always do what is right. Information Privacy compliance should never be a tick box exercise but should be a way of life and business within all companies. If you foster a culture of privacy in your company by training your employees adequately, compliance is inevitable.

This client chose Mobius because they knew that we are subject matter experts in the data protection space and as such we would effectively impart our skills and knowledge to the client’s employees thus equip them with the right amount of knowledge and skill to foster a positive privacy culture.