Protecting personally identifiable information (PII) and maintaining citizens’ trust has never been more critical; how can state, local, and education organizations move forward in their quest to establish a more secure environment? It starts with a comprehensive data management program. A THREE-STEP PROCESS TO BETTER DATA SECURITY State, local, and education institutions can take a significant step forward in enabling security and privacy by considering data across the entire information lifecycle. This might sound like a daunting task—to identify, track, and manage data from its creation to disposition—but the process itself can be broken down into three key steps: Assessment. Organizations begin by conducting privacy assessment audits to identify requirements associated with risk management, retention, and compliance to better control information from creating a record to its final disposition. Audits include taking inventory of stored data and developing an information roadmap of stored records, as well as where those records are located and who is responsible for managing them. Assessment audits provide the foundation for strengthening security. Classification. Once the privacy assessment audit phase is complete, state, local, and education organizations must classify inventory to comply with retention schedules and retain records by legal, regulatory, or privacy requirements. The process of “content classification” can leverage a rules database to determine which records can be destroyed and when—immediately or eventually. As part of this capability, organizations can automatically calculate the destruction eligibility of records according to specific retention policies and better determine when and how those records need to be securely destroyed. Secure destruction. Data classification allows a more detailed plan for disposing of records. When an organization determines a record has met the requirements of its retention policy, it must decide how to dispose of that record to ensure privacy protection. Inadequately detailed plans for disposing of data could result in organizations being out of compliance with regulations, paying fines, losing custody of sensitive information, and suffering reputational harm. It is also important to note that following a precise chain of custody is a critical component in the destruction phase to help prevent the loss or damage of a record. A chain-of-custody process is the complete, documented, chronological history of the possession and handling of a piece of information or a record. Kayman helps organizations across industries with records classification, retention schedules, and secure destruction. It helps organizations to achieve the privacy requirements of customers. If you want to know more about data privacy and security, contact info@kaymanvaults.com.