Happy 2017 everybody!

The South African Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPI) was signed in to law over a year ago, but the urgency of compliance has increased with the recent appointment of the regulator.

In Europe, the Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is similar legislation, protecting the privacy rights of European citizens.

Other data trends to watch this year include:

• The shift to Cloud. Cloud has become mainstream. Data (and even big data) in the Cloud is certainly on the agenda of many organisations – with privacy concerns one area that needs to be managed
• The focus on customer experience. Large organisations centralising customer data to improve their customer understanding and deliver a better experience need to resolve customer data quality issues, and must also manage privacy concerns.
• Data governance is increasingly on the road map for data driven organisations. We are working with companies in many industries – banking, insurance, telecommunications, hospitality and retail to bring a business focus to data management initiatives. Policies related to data access and privacy are one focus, with data sharing agreements being a common starting point.
• And of course, advanced analytics and big data are making the shift from hype to reality…

Privacy, then, is very much on the agenda of organisations doing business in Africa and Europe.

If you have the time, this +- one hour interview with Edward Snowden gives his perspectives on privacy and personal freedom

Great perspective as we look at the upcoming implementation of PoPI. GDPR and similar privacy related legislation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98eabjjAEz8