Q&A with OneTrust’s Sam Gillespie

Q&A with OneTrust’s Sam Gillespie

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In preparation for our upcoming webinar, Simplifying Data Governance Through Automation, I chatted with OneTrust’s Sam Gillespie to get a preview of his thoughts and insights. Sam is an Offering Manager at OneTrust with years of experience supporting and guiding clients through implementation.  

As more companies than ever are using data to make better business decisions, they’re also contending with growing privacy, governance, and risk obligations. OneTrust unifies data governance under one platform, streamlining business processes and ensuring privacy and security practices are built in. The integration between OneTrust and ALTR further simplifies this by automating the enforcement of governance policy.  

Let’s hear what Sam thinks about how data use and data regulations are creating challenges for companies:  

1. Can you talk a little bit about how increasing privacy regulations are making it more challenging than ever to utilize data? How is this affecting teams from privacy and legal to data and security?

I think we all expected there to be a GDPR “domino effect.” However, the scale and pace at which we’re seeing new privacy laws are taking many by surprise. In practically every corner of the globe, new privacy laws or proposed ones have come into place which require organizations to better understand, process and protect personal data. Although many of them have shared principles and foundations, no law is the same. Even just within the U.S. each law is different in its scope, requirements, and definitions of personal data. Yet data is becoming even more key to the growth and future of most organizations, so privacy and security teams must be able to meet this ever-growing complex regulatory landscape without hindering business use of data where it can be avoided. This is a huge and complex task and is a core reason why most organizations, big and small, are turning to technology to help with this.  

2. What is the problem with enforcing governance policy today?

Most companies I speak to are too far on either end of the scale. They either lock down their data to better protect it but then force their people to go through an often complex process to get access to it, if their teams are even aware the data exists, which causes slowdowns in day-to-day operations and business use of the data. Or on the other end, they have pretty open access to all data all the time, risking violations of policies and, in extreme cases, the law. Therefore, governing your data is a tricky balancing act of business enablement and compliance. It can be done though, and the benefits are felt throughout the organization. But you need to ensure you have the right tools and processes in place to facilitate this.  

3.  Are there ways to make enforcement of data governance policy more effective?

This is where technology is going to play a vital role. The sheer amount of data that most organizations have, coupled with the ever-increasing ways in which it can be used, means that governing its use manually is impractical. However, technology is not going to solve all your problems. You also need to make sure that the right tool is embedded within your current processes and operations for it to be used effectively. Also, it has to be scalable and easy to implement—it’s only going to effectively do its job if it works and is used!  

4. What do you hope the audience takes away from this webinar?

I hope the audience takes away that help is out there! Tools like ALTR and OneTrust can really help organizations with their privacy and security obligations in a way that will actually work! Great technology that complements each other and ultimately helps customers solve a business challenge: what’s not to love?!

Thanks to Sam for sharing his thoughts. In the webinar, you can hear more and see how the OneTrust + ALTR integration makes automated data governance easy. Watch on demand now.  

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