Lack of Data Rights Management Puts Your Business at Risk

Every day, we send information back and forth to the firms we do business with that potentially creates a data security risk due to the lack of data rights management. It might be information to support a contract, tax filings, and/or medical procedures and when we share this information via email or through a portal, relying on the firm and systems for data security. Many of these firms, such as tech, accounting, legal, banking, title, medical companies, fall into the small and medium (SME) size business category, that is firms with fewer than 250 employees. This is a relatively large number of entities. SMEs account for 28 million companies in the US.  

The challenge of protecting data inside and outside the four walls of your company

Here’s a sobering fact. The average organization shares documents with 826 external domains. On average over 70% of a firm’s data moves about around the organization internally.  Whether internal or external, SMEs find identifying which data to share and defining the scope and conditions for access and re-use is perceived a major challenge.

Why? Because once data are accessed or shared, unless specific data stewardship and processing provisions are in place, that data will move outside the information system of the original data holder (data controller) and thus out of the company’s control. The same is true for individuals who provide their data and give their consent for their re-use and sharing. Data holders and individuals then lose their capabilities to control how their data are re-used.

Most SMEs don’t have the budgets and experienced security teams of their larger enterprise counterparts to protect this data. This often means they on their suppliers to handle data security concerns. What does this mean to the business and each of you? It means intellectual property frequently leaves the “four walls” of a company. While it’s troubling to imagine that a trusted partner would put IP that is not their own in jeopardy, this can happen with malice or by accident. This is a high-risk situation for any SME.

SMEs gain the same data security as your bigger counterparts

Data protection, at its core, doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. The key is to look for the right application.  

Take these 3 considerations into account when identifying and evaluating a data security application.

1. Control. Take a trip back to elementary school where we all learned the five Ws (who, what, where, when, and why). When it comes to data rights management (DRM), any application you choose should allow anyone in your company and anyof your clients and customers, to decide the following in regards to data:
   a. Who can assess it
   b. Where they can access it
   c. What they can do with it, and
   d. How long the recipient can view it – should remain in the original creator’s “hands” for the lifetime of the data.
2. Easy to Use. Look for applications that don’t require your organization or your customers to have a security team or fancy key management system. It should take one click of a button.
3. Cost-effective. Does the application provide enterprise-grade data security without breaking the bank?

Business owners have too much to worry about already, including finances, hiring, managing, and retaining a team, engaging with clients, and navigating the choppy waters that surround their market. Learning how to protect your data shouldn’t be another difficult item on your “to-do” list. Watch this demo to see how easy it is to protect and secure your data and that of your customers with one click.