A Current Snapshot of Data Privacy Regulation Worldwide

When the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect in 2018, its more stringent requirements for handling the personal data of customers and other individuals presented a special challenge for companies doing business in Europe. 

But the global regulatory landscape looks very different today, with businesses on every continent besides Antarctica currently subject to regulations governing the use and stewardship of personal data. In fact, 71 percent of countries around the world currently have data privacy regulations in place, and the number is growing rapidly. How can you ensure that your business maintains compliance in all the jurisdictions within which you operate, especially when regulations can differ significantly from one country to the next?

Forcepoint’s VP for Product Marketing Jim Fulton and Director of Global Compliance Michael Leach tackle this question in their new webinar, 'From GDPR to GenAI.' Their conversation explores how the regulatory landscape has evolved since the implementation of GDPR, providing strategic insights to help companies navigate increasingly challenging compliance practices.

Major trends in global data compliance

Maintaining compliance will involve navigating new challenges that will make GDPR look simple in comparison. Three of the key emerging factors in data compliance discussed in the webinar are as follows:

1-Generative AI: Protecting personal data is now a business imperative, and an explosion of new regulation is taking place right now, with countries such as South Africa, China and Singapore enacting important new laws. The spread of GenAI technology has raised awareness of the critical importance of data security and privacy, which means that new regulations often deal directly with AI technology.

2- Data sovereignty and localization: Data is to the current world order what oil was for a former era. Countries around the globe are discovering what an important asset their data is, and they are unsurprisingly taking steps to protect this valuable resource. That means that protections for personal data are now joined by data sovereignty and data localization requirements, governing both the storage of data and its flow across national borders.

3- Differentiated regulations worldwide: While early data privacy regulations tended to follow GDPR closely, there are increasingly a number of significantly differentiated requirements that businesses operating in different parts of the world will encounter. Dealing with all of the different and potentially conflicting rules will be one of the greatest challenges of adapting to a more multilateral regulatory environment. 

A framework for data compliance success

Any company bringing services to bear in a particular market must adhere to all applicable regulatory requirements for data protection. It is therefore important to understand what data you hold and what regulations apply to it; before you can protect your data, you need to understand where it is. This can even be as granular as locating the data of one individual.

You need a solid yet flexible compliance framework in place in order to navigate the complexity of the modern regulatory landscape. In the latter half of the webinar, you’ll encounter guidance for adopting a lifecycle approach to data that can help you achieve streamlined ongoing compliance. The five steps in our approach are:

• Discover where your sensitive data resides
• Classify data to make policies and reporting consistent
• Prioritize where to focus data security efforts the most
• Protect intellectual property and regulated data everywhere
• Monitor risk to data continuously to dynamically adapt policies

Watch to get up to speed on compliance needs and strategies

Remember, your goal with compliance shouldn’t just be doing a good enough job to keep your auditors happy. You need to lean into new developments and anticipate future changes so that you can make manageable course corrections instead of last-minute direction changes. The good news is that keeping up with compliance is a great way to make sure you’re doing what it takes to succeed in business and simultaneously protect your employees and customers.

Watch the entire webinar to understand what is happening in data privacy regulation and how you can prepare. If you’re feeling ready to schedule a product demo, talk to an expert now.