All businesses have access to private information with which their clients trust them; however, it has become a distressing trend that many businesses do not treat that information with respect.  A recent survey conducted throughout the US and Britain revealed that individual privacy is regularly at risk due to carelessness and lack of encryption.  With the modern reliance on digital communication this lack of protection can have dire result for clients.

The biggest danger for confidential information in the workplace is that data has become portable.  More and more information is transmitted to and from laptops and PDAs, yet security measures are rarely in place for such devices.   As electronics become smaller and more portable, the risks associated with device theft are more prominent.  A stolen laptop could result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of client data records including addresses, phone numbers or even credit card numbers.  This information could be used by the unscrupulous long before the loss of information was reported or even known. 

Even more dangerous is the abundance of USB storage devices in the workplace.  These devices, which are smaller than a cell phone and are often used to transfer large quantities of information from one location to another, are rarely protected.  The small sizes of the devices, which amplify convenience, also make it convenient for data theft to take place.  Nearly a third of respondents polled admitted the loss of a USB storage device and of those over 80% confirmed that they didn’t know if there was encryption on the device.

The same lack of security measures is prevalent in other areas of the office.  Email has long replaced traditional means as the preferred method of communication for businesses.  In spite of this email is rarely treated with the respect it deserves.  Throughout the course of a day, passwords, usernames and files are regularly transmitted without a thought to encryption.  Even worse is the ever popular forward chain, in which numerous people are included on an email that may contain private information.  The last careless assumption is perhaps the most common.  Most computer users assume that deleting information from their hard drive is a final solution to data removal.  The truth is that even when a file is deleted fragments of that data can remain on the hard drive long after the original file is removed.  Programs dedicated to “shredding” digital files are necessary for just this reason.  This is especially important when a computer is retired from use. 

Data and identity theft are on the rise, so everyone needs to do his or her part to ensure that client data is secured.