Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has become a strategic move for businesses looking to reduce costs, access specialized skills, and improve efficiency. However, like most business processes that involve the internet, it comes with the risk of data breaches. Of course, once your outsourcing service provider has robust security measures in place, such as multi-factor authentication, you shouldn’t have to worry about data security and data privacy.
Here, we take a comprehensive look at ensuring data security when outsourcing, covering everything from evaluating providers to ongoing compliance.
How do you Ensure Data Security?
To ensure data security when outsourcing, look out for the following:
1. Evaluating and Selecting the Right Provider
- Due diligence: Before engaging with an outsourcing partner, assess their security policies, track record, and reputation. At Emapta, for instance, we have bank-level security, an on-site Australian management team, and proven internal systems and processes to back up your data.
- Security practices: Evaluate the provider’s security practices, including their data encryption methods, access control policies, and incident response procedures.
- Legal and regulatory compliance: Does the provider comply with relevant regulations? Furthermore, do they meet regulations within your jurisdiction?
2. Define Clear Data Security Requirements
- Establish data security protocols: Clearly define your security standards and protocol demands. This could cover encryption, secure data transmission, and data storage practices.
- Data classification: Categorize data based on its sensitivity and outline specific handling requirements for each category.
- Access controls: Define who can access your data, under what conditions, and ensure that access is granted on a need-to-know basis.
3. Legal and Contractual Safeguards
- Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs): Ensure that all parties involved in the outsourcing arrangement sign NDAs to legally bind them to confidentiality.
- Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Define security-related SLAs that set expectations for how your provider will protect your data and respond to security incidents.
- Data security clauses: For added peace of mind, include specific data protection clauses in the contract. Cover aspects like data ownership, breach notification timelines, and penalties for non-compliance.
4. Implement Strong Encryption and Data Protection Measures
- Data encryption: When dealing with all data, ensure it’s encrypted through strong encryption standards. This minimizes the risk of data breaches during transmission or storage.
- Security audits: You may ask a third-party security expert to conduct regular security audits. This will help to assess the provider’s adherence to security protocols and identify vulnerabilities.
- Data masking: Implement data masking techniques to hide sensitive data in non-production environments. This ensures that developers can only access anonymized data.
Related article: Building Cyber Resiliency: An Adaptive Approach to IT Security
5. Ongoing Monitoring and Incident Management
- Continuous monitoring: Implement continuous monitoring of data access and usage to detect unauthorized access or suspicious activities in real-time.
- Incident response plan: Work with your provider to establish a clear incident response plan. Include the steps to take in case of a data breach, such as communication protocols and mitigation strategies.
- Security updates: Ensure that the provider regularly updates their systems, applies patches, and upgrades security measures to protect against new threats.
6. Data Recovery and Backup
- Regular backups: Does your provider maintain regular backups of your data in a secure, encrypted format? Check that backups are stored in a different location from the primary data storage to prevent loss during a disaster.
- Data recovery plan: For your own sake, develop, test, and implement a data recovery plan that ensures business continuity in case of a data loss incident.
7. Termination of Services
- Data return and destruction: In the event you end your outsourcing relationship, ensure that all your data is returned or securely destroyed. The provider should provide certification of data destruction to guarantee that no residual data remains in their systems.
- Revoking access: At the cessation of the relationship, immediately revoke all access permissions granted to prevent unauthorized access.
The Future of Data Security
Ensuring data security when outsourcing requires a proactive approach. It starts when you choose your provider and lasts throughout the entire lifecycle of the outsourcing relationship.
By implementing the measures outlined in this guide, you can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches and protect your business’s sensitive information. Remember, data security is not a one-time effort, so it’s important that your provider maintains constant vigilance and adapts to new threats.
Proven Data Security Measures with Emapta
As a leading outsourcing provider with talent hubs in the Philippines, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Macedonia and Colombia, Emapta understands the importance of data security.
We employ bank-level cybersecurity, an on-site Australian management team, and proven internal systems and processes to back up your valuable data. To ensure its absolute safety, we utilize:
- ISO 27001-certified virtual/onsite work structure and protocols
- 24/7 on-site IT and admin support
- 15-site bank-level logical and physical security
- SOC 2 privacy and security attestations and meets Australian Privacy Principles (APP) standards
- 99.7% internet up-time and 100% power redundancy
- Comprehensive disaster recovery and business continuity procedures
To outsource with a partner who understands GDPR, data protection regulations, and your data security needs, begin your Emapta journey by booking a consultation today.
About Emapta
Founded in 2010, Emapta is a top-tier global outsourcing company with a strong presence in 19 offices across the Philippines, Colombia, Macedonia, Sri Lanka, the United States, and Malaysia. We build high-performing teams as a seamless extension of our clients’ onshore operations and offer tailored solutions with expertise in Customer Experience, Accounting & Finance, Mortgage & Financial Services, Tech and Retail. With over 9,000 employees globally, we build and operate global teams efficiently, transparently and equitably for our clients and talent team members.
