January 28 is Data Privacy Day, an international effort to empower individuals and businesses to respect privacy, safeguard data and enable trust. The day is dedicated to helping individuals learn more about managing their privacy and protecting their personal information and encouraging businesses to be more transparent about how they collect and use data. [1]
At MetLife, we are continuously working towards increasing data privacy through data governance, cybersecurity and compliance functions to ensure we not only raise awareness within our organisation about the importance of data privacy but also working with our global counterparts to collaborate on progressive and innovative ways to protect our customers’ privacy.
We have robust protection protocols and frameworks in place to remove vulnerabilities and the risk of unauthorised access to data. Where data protection is essentially a technical issue, data privacy is a legal one. Technology alone cannot ensure the privacy of personal data, therefore at MetLife the protection of data privacy is everyone’s responsibility.
What do we do?
If we collect it, we protect it. As an organisation we have security measures to keep individuals’ personal information safe from inappropriate and unauthorised access.
We are open and honest about how we collect, use and share customers’ personal information. We think about how the customer may expect their data to be used, and design settings to protect their information by default.
Create the right culture. We educate employees on cybersecurity, compliance and data governance, the importance and impact of protecting customer and employee information, as well as the role they play in keeping it safe.
Conduct due diligence and maintain oversight of partners and vendors. If someone provides services on our behalf, we will make sure they care for our customers' personal information to no less a same standard that we would.
By understanding and strengthening the protection and security of data we build a culture which incorporates data governance and cybersecurity, increasing trust and confidence to protect the privacy of our customer’s data from online threats and making data privacy our priority.
Lisa Zavaroni
Data Governance Lead
References:
- Data Privacy Day 2017 Media Backgrounder - https://staysafeonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Data-Privacy-Day-Backgrounder-For-Media.pdf
