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Expert calls for data privacy laws

Martin Czernowalow
By Martin Czernowalow, Contributor.
Johannesburg, 28 Nov 2005

As the South African economy and its global competitiveness continues to grow, local organisations will have to fall in line with their overseas counterparts and up their internal data privacy systems if they want to trade internationally, an industry expert says.

Salome Kwant, regional technology manager of Compuware for Middle East and Africa, says as more companies look to deal with South African organisations, they will need to adhere to internationally accepted data privacy regulations.

"Nothing in terms of data privacy is legislated in SA, and most local companies are doing different things in this area. Most have measures taking place during production, but there is often no data security during testing," she says.

Kwant says to prevent, for example, data in testing labs being abused, the European Data Protection Act states that customer data may not be transferred to non-EU countries unless that country has regulations which can provide similar levels of privacy protection to the UK.

"While most countries aren`t authorised, organisations in these countries may be authorised to receive customer data if they can provide adequate safeguards. Not complying with these conditions may lead to prosecution, fraud and irreparable damage to corporate reputation," she says.

There are many aspects to data protection and experienced personnel and tools are required to ensure data privacy systems are properly deployed according to the businesses or industries they serve, Kwant adds.

Data protection is becoming increasingly crucial for local companies, she states, adding that little has thus far been done in this regard.

"I think the corporates are concerned about this issue, especially within the financial sector, and I can see government taking steps to legislate data protection in the near future," Kwant says.

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