On this International Data Privacy Day 2021, I want to emphasize the continued priority we place on data privacy and security in all aspects of our work. This past year has been dominated by news of the pandemic and its impact — economically and socially — as organizations struggle to maintain a degree of normalcy and business continuity. As we continue to adapt to this ‘normal’, our commitment to data privacy and security remains unchanged and we continue to explore opportunities, both internally and externally, to improve our policies and processes.
The Canadian government is also active in this area with the ongoing pursuit of regulatory changes to the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), now to be renamed the Consumer Privacy Protection Act or CPPA. It is therefore incumbent on all stakeholders — government, businesses, not-for-profits and consumers — to be part of the dialogue ensuring that the appropriate guardrails are in place to protect consumer privacy while enabling organizations to use data responsibly and securely.
As a dynamic, data-centric business focused on making peoples’ lives better and our clients more successful, we are fully committed to executing beyond basic compliance requirements. Clients expect the highest privacy and security standards from us, which is why we continue to invest in privacy controls, security tools, risk measurement and annual audits.
In the interest of brevity, I have summarized below some of the actions we have taken to raise the bar in these areas.
Environics Analytics values and adheres to a comprehensive set of privacy principles that enable us to be a responsible member of the marketing and analytics community. We are committed to upholding values and principles such as:
We are responsible for all information under our control. Accountability is the first fair information principle in the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), and we strongly believe that this principle is the foundation to our effective corporate privacy framework.
These are the focus items:
Whether information is sensitive (such as financial or health information) or not, all confidential information must be appropriately safeguarded and only used for the purpose(s) for which it was collected.
Environics Analytics has implemented these measures to securely manage information:
Environics Analytics will pay close attention to changes to the draft legislation as it moves through Parliament. Though it remains to be seen which specific legislation will be adopted, what is clear is that Canadian privacy law is changing, as it is in the US, and we are well-positioned to implement stricter requirements.
As an organization, our commitment to you is that we will continue to invest in privacy and data security programs to ensure that our data are managed in strict compliance with the laws and that continue to enable you, our clients, to make better data-driven decisions with confidence.
Wishing you a happy and secure International Data Privacy Day 2021.
Jan Kestle is the President and CEO of Environics Analytics, Canada’s leading data analytics and marketing services company. She is a member of the Canadian Statistics Advisory Council, the Board of Directors of the Canadian Marketing Association and the Advisory Board of Ryerson University School of Geography.
Environics Analytics is represented on the Canadian Marketing Association’s Privacy and Data Advisory, Standards Council of Canada - Canadian Data Governance Standardization Collaborative, GDPR Working Group, and the International Association of Privacy Professionals.
Read our Privacy Day 2020 Open Letter