Data protection is fast rising to the top of construction IT department’s agenda due to a combination of imminent new regulation from the EU and recent security hacks. As new technology solutions continue to be implemented to help improve efficiency, support zero accidents or protect sites, the industry is facing new questions and challenges to remain compliant to the legislation or face damage to reputation and significant fines. It is also clear that this new world is not without even larger pitfalls to the traditional paper based method of data capture and storage, with company after company offering “secure cloud solutions” with little standards to back it up.
In 2013 alone, hackers targeted companies including Facebook, Microsoft, NBC, Evernote and Twitter, with not even the mighty Google escaping unscathed. On many of these occasions the hackers have not obtained any private data, but data security has become a very real concern for businesses[i].
In Europe, despite some difference of opinion over the details, there is a common political consensus that the European Union needs a modern, European-wide approach to data protection law[ii].
The current EU regulation dates from 1995, pre-dating the systematic collection of user data. In addition, the various EU member states have each incorporated the regulation in a different way into their national laws. The new regulation, which would see EU data protection standards applied to any data collected on EU citizens, no matter where it's processed. Violations are to be punishable with fines of up to 5 per cent of annual sales, or up to 100 million euros (£80 million)[iii].
With their large workforces and extensive use of sub-contractors, data collection and storage is major issue for Construction companies. The prospect of tighter regulation around people’s personal data and continued cyber-attacks means it is vital that Construction companies are storing their data securely and even more important if they are looking to follow the growing trend of outsourcing the storage of business critical systems to a third party cloud storage provider.
This is an excerpt from our recent white paper, "Five Questions to Ask Your Cloud Hosting Provider". To find out more click on the button to download the white paper. You can also learn how our site access and workforce management solution, MSite, secures your data in the cloud.
[i] The right way to keep your company data secure online, Torgny Gunnarsson – Beta News, June 9th 2014 - http://betanews.com/2014/06/09/the-right-way-to-keep-your-company-data-secure-online/
[ii] Update on the General Data Protection Regulation, Manuela Finger, LL.M. and Andrew Shindler - King & Wood Mallesons , April 24th 2014 – http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6e7e524a-b57c-440e-b100-580172126dcf
[iii] Power struggles delay EU data reform, Ralf Bosen - DW, May 13th 2014 - http://www.dw.de/power-struggles-delay-eu-data-protection-reform/a-17631222