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EU wants to implement fees for data breaches
The European Justice Commissioner is looking to protect data privacy by implementing harsher fines for companies that don't adhere to the rules. European Commission Vice President Viviane Reding said the current fines in place for breaching privacy laws don't provide enough of an impetus for companies to comply, BBC reported. According to Reding, European penalties for private companies breaching data are low despite widespread continental concerns about cybersecurity - including the 92 percent of Europeans who fear their mobile devices are being monitored.
"Europeans need to get serious," Reding said in a press release. "If a company has broken the rules and failed to mend its ways, this should have serious consequences."
What Reding proposes are fines of up to two percent of the company's annual cash flow, she said in the release. The bigger the company, the harsher the fine. She said the implementation of a fine also serves to acknowledge that most information is stored in the digital sphere. With the broad move to digital comes the need to regulate it, she said.
"Our data protection reform is a building block of the digital single market," she explained. "A single set of rules in a crucial sector, consistently applied."
Without taking suitable encryption measures, organizations are more susceptible to data breaches that could result in enormous losses. According to IT Business Edge, the five industrial sectors that are most susceptible to a breach this year are healthcare, government, financial services, energy/utilities and emergency services. Each of these sectors are vulnerable for different reasons. Healthcare, for instance, has become more vulnerable because the Affordable Care Act has furnished millions more Americans with healthcare. Greater availability of insurance translates to larger volumes of data, which puts the system at greater risk of attack. However, data encryption can help prevent attacks on all five of those groups.
Protect your data by looking into your encryption options today.
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