What you need to know about Workday & Data Privacy
The data privacy landscape is constantly shifting. Today more than ever, we live and work in a world where change is the only constant. Organisations able to predict and adapt to change faster have a competitive advantage. Workday helps its customers adapt to change and make better decisions faster by centralising important business data in one place - but all of that data needs to be protected.
Workday’s in-built security protects business data, but the responsibility for enacting appropriate data privacy programs lies with the organisation. New data privacy regulations and amendments to existing laws compel organisations to take action—but it’s not easy. Failure to define governance and controls over protected data and personal information increases exposure to data breach and increases costs of non-compliance.
Understanding the trends that are impacting the data privacy landscape is key for knowing how your organisation can mitigate any potential financial or reputational risk. In this article, Kainos data privacy experts share the top five trends that could change the way your business collects, stores and safeguards personal and sensitive information and what you need to know to ensure your data is protected.
Data privacy trends that can impact Workday
1. Evolving Regulations
From China to California and everywhere in between, jurisdictions around the world are following the EU’s lead in producing their own GDPR-like laws to protect personal and employee information. Given the potentially strict penalties these new laws could usher in, organisations must ensure they have the right processes and technology in place to secure data in their HR and finance systems, and Workday environments.
2. Sensitive data collection
The drive for greater diversity and inclusion (D&I) means many organisations are collecting and storing sensitive data such as sexual orientation and race in greater volumes than before. The result of such data being leaked or breached can be considerable, so it requires robust protection.
3. More informed workers
Data protection regulations like the GDPR have not only empowered consumers with new entitlements, they’ve also raised awareness among employees about their data privacy rights. This puts more pressure still on organisations to ensure staff data is properly protected.
4. Data privacy is not just IT’s problem
Organisations across the globe now realise the serious financial and reputational impact a data breach could have. That has made it a critical boardroom issue, beyond the traditional purview of the IT department.
5. Automation drives agility
Organisations must become more adaptable against the backdrop of a continuously evolving privacy landscape. The only way to scale operations globally and ensure they satisfy a patchwork of changing requirements is to invest in smart, automated solutions.
How you can protect sensitive data and mitigate risk across Workday
Workday’s security framework and audit capabilities support effective data privacy controls. But HR organisations have to be intentional about how their internal controls leverage Workday capabilities. HR teams can protect their workforce’s sensitive data by defining effective preventive controls and continuously monitoring potential security risk events.
Tip 1: Be proactive: Go above and beyond 'checking a box'
Regulations are always changing, and your organisation must be a step ahead to ensure data is protected regardless of new amendments. If you’ve acquired a new company or are merging with another business, the task of unifying data across new territories and markets and complying with new regulations can be challenging. Don’t get caught off guard when you face new or evolving regulations, be proactive in your data protection approach, define effective preventative controls and continuously monitor security risk events.
Tip 2: Enforce the principle of least privilege
A key aspect of security is ensuring the right people have the right access. Restricting Privileged Access is a critical production tenant control. Access to privileged administrative capabilities, business processes, and tasks must be carefully provisioned, monitored, and managed as job responsibilities change. Your Workday production tenant is subject to ongoing change. As a result, validating security configurations and security group membership at the pace of business change is increasingly important. By invoking the principle of least privilege, organisations can limit the impact of a potential breach.
Tip 3: Establish a consistent framework for governance
A data privacy breach/leak and exposure of information can damage an organisation’s reputation and its ability to undertake its mission, whether governmental, not-for-profit, or corporate and even risks the ruin and closure of a company. Establishing controls is essential to protecting your organisation. A solid framework allows you to assess your primary risks and plan how to automate controls to ensure global governance. Investing in automation tools is key to driving change and growing at scale.
How does Kainos Smart help?
Kainos Smart delivers automated compliance solutions designed to safeguard your Workday journey. Smart Shield and Smart Audit work together to provide Workday customers with a robust data privacy program able to effectively prevent and detect data privacy risks across your Workday estate.
Smart Shield is an intelligent data masking solution built specifically for Workday. The latest in our award-winning Smart product suite, it acts like a secure layer between sensitive data and the users who need to support and maintain your Workday non-production environment. That helps to keep sensitive personal information and business-critical data safe – reducing privacy risk without impacting user productivity.
Smart Audit is always-on security monitoring designed to protect production from security risks. Smart Audit gives you visibility to risks before they become a problem by proactively monitoring changes to your security configuration. With pre-built controls covering data privacy, privileged access and segregation of duties, Smart Audit delivers instant value, minimises risk exposure, and reduces compliance effort by over 90%.