Privacy and Confidentiality protection has always been a major issue on the internet. Issues like data breaches, ad tracking, misuse of personal data and other issues have shaken the public and for all the right reasons!

Many data breaches, stolen records include credit card numbers, home phone numbers and other sensitive data, enormous attacks on major brands and organisations raised public awareness and fear. Major news channels regularly report on online privacy threats, data breaches and various ways in which personal data and sensitive information is misused and how people fall prey to such abuses. Facebook, the world’s largest social media site, cannot stay out of the news when it comes to privacy abuse. There are numerous frightening stories of various social media users about stalking and fraud too. But without question the public scrutiny has taken public awareness to a whole new level.

How can you let people know that your organisation takes privacy very seriously? 

• Do an internal audit and make sure you are handling personal data ethically and with technical care. 
• Make sure your website’s privacy policy is thorough and written in plain English. 
• Add brief, boiled-down privacy statements to your website’s contact page(s), shopping cart pages, and on any other forms, login pages or landing pages where customers and prospects enter personal data.
• Educate your sales and marketing teams on privacy issues and how to talk about them with customers and prospects.

Emphasizing privacy could be crucial when the order comes down to you and a competitor. Furthermore, emphasizing privacy enhances your company’s image in a larger sense, conveying to the market that you put customers first and understand the need for balance between business generation and security. If your company handles personal data ethically and with technical care it can be talked about as an important customer benefit. Two or three years ago, your customers and prospects may not have given it any importance. But surely, today, they will!