Building and Implementing a Privacy Culture

Why Develop a privacy culture?

Establishing a robust privacy culture within your organisation is essential for fostering a shared understanding of how personal data can be utilised effectively to support business objectives. A strong privacy culture not only enhances compliance with regulations but also empowers employees across various teams to recognise the significance of data protection in their daily operations.

When an organisation prioritises privacy, it encourages open dialogue about data usage, leading to increased collaboration between departments. This alignment helps to clarify the responsibilities and expectations surrounding personal data handling, ensuring that all staff members are aware of best practices and regulatory requirements. As a result, teams become more engaged and supportive of privacy initiatives, recognising their role in safeguarding customer trust and enhancing the company’s reputation.

Moreover, a well-established privacy culture can drive innovation by encouraging teams to think creatively about how they can leverage personal data responsibly while still achieving business goals. By embedding this mindset into the fabric of your organisation, you create an environment where privacy is viewed as an enabler rather than a hindrance—ultimately leading to greater organisational success.

The culture of an organisation is about attitudes, the behaviour of its employees, it’s about ethics, its vision and values, it is the heart and soul of the organisation.

So, how do we implement privacy into the very core of the organisation?

Building a culture of privacy is about being proactive rather than reactive and privacy is more than just about legal compliance, where there is a good privacy culture then legal compliance will simply be an outcome.

To start the process of building a culture of privacy means engaging your employees in the process and empowering them to be able to take responsibility for dealing with the personal data that has been entrusted to your organisation.

This means that the organisation needs to be prepared to provide the training and support necessary to enable its employees to achieve this level of knowledge and therefore be able to do their job with confidence.

What you want to achieve is that ‘privacy’ becomes the default setting when using personal data. This means that your privacy programme engages with both senior management and teams across the organisation.

Creating a Privacy Culture

Gain leadership buy in

Organisational culture starts at the top. Senior management need to be seen to engage with the programme. They also need to be committed when it comes to the allocation of budgets.

Build a network

Select a few key individuals who will be able to spread the word, individuals who are enthusiastic about the programme, these will be your privacy champions.

Create Privacy Champions

These PCs will be enthusiastic about privacy, they will be knowledgeable, it maybe that they have received extra training and awareness, ideally each department that deals with personal data will have their own ‘privacy champion’. The PCs will promote the privacy programme within their own teams, they will understand about the need for and the importance of privacy, they will be able to answer queries on a day-to-day basis.

Talk about Privacy

Make privacy a talking point. Ensure that it is on the agenda for team meetings, is there an individual who has shone and should be celebrated for a task well done? Put up posters, make a privacy mascot. Have a monthly privacy awareness day, where there is amnesty on all personal data that is being held on personal computers. Touch points are good and help to keep privacy at the forefront.

Engage New Employees at their Induction Training

Include privacy in the induction course, write it up for the staff handbook, make sure new employees know that privacy is the default setting from the first day they are on the job.

Work with different Departments

Work with the departments where data is used, think customer service, marketing, HR. It is important to empower individuals to know that they can still use personal data to achieve objectives, but they must understand how they can use it. Privacy doesn’t mean constantly saying no, but it does mean doing things the right way and this is what everyone needs to know.

Work with the organisation not against it

For a privacy programme to work it must engage with stakeholders across the organisation and needs to align with the strategic goals of the organisation. Privacy needs to work for the organisation not against it.

A privacy culture will give you a shared understanding within your organisation of how personal data can and should be used to support the business objectives. This will then drive alignment with other teams and departments which will increase understanding of and support for privacy within the organisation.

The result being that personal data can be used in a way that is compliant but still achieving ‘best use’ for the organisation and the individuals to whom it belongs.

Building a culture of privacy is not an overnight exercise, it does take time, but by following a plan it is achievable and it will a great benefit to the organisation.

For further information on creating a privacy culture within your organisation and how we can help contact us and we will be happy to have that initial conversation.