In the digital age, where data is growing exponentially and is becoming the new oil, safeguarding sensitive information has become more important than ever. The process of protecting data is the implementation of policies and procedures that are designed to prevent data loss or corruption and ensure the anchor integrity and availability of data.

The following are the main principles of data protection:

1. Data availability – Ensuring that data is always available to users, whether they are stored online or offline. This involves accessing, storing and managing data according its context and sensitivity to ensure that it is always available for reporting, analysis, development and testing.

2. Data management – Ensuring that data is handled in a manner that meets the requirements of regulatory and business. This includes preventing unauthorised access to data through the implementation of policies that are based on roles, such as access control and encryption, which ensure that only authorized persons are able to access data. Also, it is important to limit access to data through tools such as the classification of documents, usage logs and other tools that let organizations to track who accesses which files and when.

3. Data privacy – Ensuring that personal data are processed in a legally, fair, and transparent manner, and that individuals are informed in a clear manner about the use of their personal data. It also involves limiting the processing of personal data to what is essential for the intended purpose and to avoid processing that is unnecessary.

The process of organizing data security can be a daunting task however, it can be made easy and effective with the proper system. To establish a system of organization, it’s essential to define specific goals, such as compliance with GDPR and personal data security. From there the system can be planned and implemented with the help of software tools that help streamline the process.