What happens when there is a breach of data? 

There’s recently been changes to the laws surrounding data breaches that you must understand.

Enacted in February, the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme (NDB) introduced an obligation to notify any individuals involved in a data breach that may result in serious harm.

Upon a data breach, agencies and organizations must undergo an assessment of whether the breach could cause serious harm.

According to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, a data breach occurs when:

1. There is unauthorised access to or unauthorised disclosure of personal information, or a loss of personal information, that an entity holds (see, What is a ‘data breach’?)

2. This is likely to result in serious harm to one or more individuals (see, Is serious harm likely?), and

3.The entity has not been able to prevent the likely risk of serious harm with remedial action (see, Preventing serious harm with remedial action).For more information regarding what consists of a data breach, click here.Research from ServiceNow’s global report, Today’s State of Security Response: ‘Patch Work’ Demands Attention, obtained via ARN, suggests that over half of Australian businesses have experienced a data breach in the last 12 months. 48% of these were a result of a known security exploit, with a security patch available at the time of the breach.

The best way to ensure that you are delivering best practice when it comes to privacy and security is to start with an audit.

One of WorkPro’s partners Certex International (https://www.certex.com.au/) is a specialist in certification and offers various programs and support for companies to understand and implement robust standards.

WorkPro has undertaken a privacy audit and implemented the recommendations, and is proud to be certified against the standard.

As a compliance specialist, WorkPro is committed to ensuring that we help users understand about Australian Privacy laws, including each Parties rights and responsibilities, and provide our users with confidence when it comes to securing their information.

Firstly, WorkPro offers a Privacy Module.

This module includes what responsibilities you have for protecting other people’s information, a discussion of the Australian Privacy Principles, and the purpose of a Privacy Policy, amongst other things.

The module is available as part of any WorkPro induction subscription.

Something to explore?

WorkPro is also embarking on our latest round of functional updates.

This includes new police check requirements, as part of the Federal Government identity security strategy and also the extension of our probity checks.

These updates have led us to introduce more sophisticated data protection protocols and the introduction of the option for a user to establish their own personal identity vault.

The vault invites candidates to safely and securely store their identity documents, rather than having to repeatedly upload them.

The vault uses military grade encryption for both transmitting and storing documents, which means that candidates can utilise and attach their identity documents across various checks within WorkPro.

Think about it. If a candidate is asked to complete a citizenship check and they upload an Australian Passport, (a) that information should be securely stored by (b) they should be able to use the identity for other checks.

By upload and storing in their vault, the identity is under lock and key, password protected by the candidate and protected using WorkPro’s security protocols, and the candidate can apply uploaded identity against another check to save time and effort.