Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) is a vital operational framework for businesses of all sizes across every industry. GRC relates to efficient management that allows an organisation’s activities to support its goals while complying with legal obligations and mitigating risks.

GRC technology helps organisations navigate operational concerns, laws and threats to achieve their strategic objectives in a GRC framework.

Rising consumer concerns, cultural shifts, ongoing digital threats and changing regulations have forced organisations to rethink their GRC obligations, and the protection of personally identifiable information (PII) is a critical concern. In this article, we explore GRC trends and predictions and delve into best practices for PII protection.

What is GRC technology, and how does it help with PII?

Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) are crucial to business success, ensuring operations align with goals, identifying and managing risks, and following laws and regulations.

Organisations are turning to GRC technology to help manage GRC obligations. But what is GRC technology? It can include:

• Document and policy management tools that create, track and store content to improve efficiency and decrease the risk of non-compliance
• Analytics that measure and predict risk
• Workflow management software that establishes and monitors GRC-related workflow, leading to increased efficiency
• Audit management programs to simplify processes and lead to better compliance
• Integrated software that measures KPIs and allows visualisation in real-time
• Tools that assess employee compliance and ensure they are up to date with changing regulations

Crucially, GRC frameworks help protect personally identifiable information (PII) by ensuring an organisation’s processes effectively safeguard sensitive information. GRC sets out clear responses to breaches, plus roles and responsibilities regarding data protection, ensuring accountability. GRC technology can identify risks to PII and be used to ensure the organisation adheres to data protection and privacy laws.

Governance, risk and compliance trends and predictions for PII protection

So, what are some emerging GRC trends?

• The management of risk from an expanding network of cloud-based data and applications featuring dynamic risk and control mapping
• Ready-made integrations for seamless data sharing, automated data collection and real-time security alerts
• The integration of security expertise and a comprehensive map for regulatory compliance
• Clear visibility of potential security risks and the controls that align with regulations, plus more streamlined audit processes
• The leveraging of compliance content, automation and expert guidance in user-friendly, mobile-supported platforms

Shane Reid, Director of Umlaut Solutions, has seen significant changes in GRC. “This has been driven by huge growth in data, the very public display of data breaches and the enactment of many regulations in multiple jurisdictions.

“Good progress has been made in automation and integration. Companies are also reassessing what PII they need to hold and using data minimisation to reduce the amount stored. While consumers are more wary of giving up their PII.”

Shane also predicts that PII protection will evolve in several ways in the years ahead. “I think the first is an avenue for decentralised and blockchain-driven GRC,” he says. “With the growing trend of ‘the people’ taking back control of their data privacy, decentralised identity management solutions where individuals have direct control over their data could emerge.”

Investment in hyper-automation and continuous monitoring is also on the rise, says Shane. “I would expect significant advancements in automation, with AI and machine learning (ML) taking on more tasks like remediation, discovery, classification and risk assessment. If we can automate much of the monitoring, we can free up human resources for higher-level tasks.”

He also believes businesses will invest in a culture of privacy, helping build customer trust.

“The amount of PII collected from the Internet of Things (like wearables) is also growing, so GRC tech will also need to adapt, integrate and manage,” adds Shane. “We will need advanced AI and context-aware systems to analyse and protect PII in real-time.”

Top 10 PII data security best practices

An organisation that fails to protect PII faces massive repercussions. Instagram, Amazon, TikTok, Facebook and Uber are just some of the global brands fined hundreds of millions of dollars for customer data breaches in recent years.

In Australia, Optus and Medibank have suffered negative media coverage and an exodus of clients who lost trust after data breaches. Financial loss, reputational damage and legal repercussions all result from such failures, says Shane.

“The big guys can usually survive. But I worry about the smaller businesses. Data loss and subsequent PR disasters have ended businesses.”

So, what can organisations do to protect PII data? Here are Shane’s suggestions:

• Conduct phishing simulations and awareness campaigns and encourage reporting of suspicious behaviour among employees
• Put strong security and encryption protocols in place on servers, databases and anything mobile
• Implement classification levels and controls
• Conduct regular scans of data for PII and maintain updated data inventory
• Review access rights regularly
• Define data retention policies, purge outdated PII and anonymise the data
• Conduct regular pen testing, educate employees on responding to incidents and have clear data breach notification procedures
• Update contracts, include data security clauses, regularly assess compliance and check PII flow to third parties
• Continuously assess your security, update policies and invest in training

Secure your data today

The nature of GRC is evolving rapidly, and organisations that fail to protect PII face financial and reputational damage. However, there is much organisations can do to bolster their GRC frameworks and protect customer data.

Are your organisation’s GRC frameworks and PII processes robust enough to face the future? Umlaut can help. Our solutions are designed to streamline your organisation’s GRC and PII obligations. Discover how we can help you safeguard your data today.