Now that most of us are back to work as normal and have just about got over the New Year’s Eve hangover, it’s time to take a look at everyone’s favourite topic; compliance!
All jokes aside, the compliance landscape is looking particularly interesting heading in to 2019, and organizations of all shapes and sizes will have to pay attention if they want to avoid being demonized by the press and governing bodies.
Anti-Money Laundering Innovation
Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance programs are likely to see some significant change in 2019 due to calls from banking regulators in 2018 to embrace more innovation. It remains to be seen whether banks choose to bury their heads in the sand and ignore this challenge or not.
Some ways we could see banks innovate their AML compliance programs is through adopting more artificial intelligence for transaction monitoring or improving on existing financial intelligence units. There was even some peace of mind given by regulators that any gaps found through innovation in your existing AML compliance program will not be punished with sanctions.
Hopefully this will encourage more banks to experiment!
Following Through on GDPR Fines
Although GDPR has been in enforcement for a while now, we have yet to see the first meaningful punishment be given under the new regulation. This is despite the number of whistleblower-type data protection complaints to the ICO increasing dramatically across the EU, and some major data breaches taking place within the last 6 months.
It’s only a matter of time before someone catches the authorities in a bad mood and a serious, potentially crippling, fine is dealt out. I predict that will happen very early in the year, as many organizations still don’t have a clue about what is really required when it comes to meeting GDPR compliance.
All it will take is for one major fine to send shockwaves around other organizations in the EU and force them to get into gear.
Better Data Privacy in the US
The GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act have put increasing pressure on Republicans to put new federal privacy legislation into place. In fact, it’s one of the only things that Republicans and Democrats can agree on at the moment.
The reason I think we will see such legislation take place this year is because there is no way substantial action will be taken once the 2020 election cycle, and the chaos it brings, starts. For those of you operating in a global organization that includes the data of EU citizens, and are therefore already bound by GDPR, these potential changes could lead to even more complexity when it comes to company privacy policies.
Meeting Compliance in 2019
Whether you’re a hospital looking to meet HIPAA compliance, or a retailer bound by PCI compliance, it’s likely that you will face stricter regulations in 2019. This means that you will need to tighten up on your security policies and practices as well as implement some form of sophisticated data security and compliance solution.
Using native auditing to meet compliance regulations simply won’t get the job done in 2019, as the standards are likely to require far more comprehensive reports and proactive auditing. If you want an easier way to meet compliance requirements, the Lepide Data Security Platform might be the solution for you.
The solution contains hundreds of pre-defined reports created to meet all manner of compliance requirements specific to your organization. Within a few simple clicks, you can have a report ready to help you pass that pesky compliance audit as well as knowing you have a solution in place that will help you drastically improve your data security.