Data Protection Act 1998
SafeTok and the Data Protection Act 1998 From April 6, 2010 breaches of the Data Protection Act (DPA) can incur penalties of up to £500,000.
This steep increase in penalties reflects the view of the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) that organisations need to take both the DPA Act and data protection seriously.
The ICO is realistic and understands that losses will still occur but is looking for organisations to prioritise data security controls to reduce the risk of personal data loss to an acceptable level.
The Data Protection Act states that computer security needs to be proportionate to the size and use of your organisation's systems. There is no requirement that SMEs attempt to deploy the same systems as a multinational company.
However, encryption is the single most critical personal information security control that should be implemented in companies of all sizes because encrypted data is intrinsically secure.
Encrypting personal data, wherever it is stored (data at rest) and whenever it is shared (data on the move), ensures controlled access to sensitive information which goes a long way toward preventing unauthorised or unlawful processing.
Sharing data and transferring data from one user to another is currently seen as the greatest data security risk. Enforcing encryption for data on the move avoids many of the most common data loss scenarios and counters any charges of recklessly breaching the principles of the Data Protection Act.
SafeTok enables compliance with the Data Protection Act by:
- Enforcing auditable, secure access and authentication to sensitive personal data.
- Encrypting data at rest on both removable and fixed data storage media.
- Encrypting data when it is being shared or moved.
- Providing ongoing end user security awareness training.
- Proving anti-phishing technology.
- Preventing man-in-the-middle attacks.
- Offering remote de-activation if a device is lost or stolen.
- Ensuring that deleted encrypted data is not just deleted but "shredded".
- Offering compliance with PCI DSS, WEEE, ISO 27001, and all major international data security jurisdictions .
SafeTok is delivered directly to the end user either as a software download, enabling users to transform a standard, low cost USB pen drive into an encrypted drive or pre loaded onto SafeTok biometric USB pen drive.
Additional services such as SafeTok Backup, SafeTok Send , SafeTok InfoShow and SafeTok Workspaces are provided on a convenient and cost effective subscription service.
Click here to learn more about how SafeTok could protect your organisation.