Cisco Study Reveals Critical Role of Privacy Emerging from Global Pandemic

Global study finds significant privacy concerns stemming from the pandemic, fueled by rapid shift to remote work and the need to utilize health information of individuals.
Privacy legislation worldwide has been well received, with nearly 80% of security and privacy professionals seeing positive impact on their organizations.
Strong privacy infrastructure and robust security practices are essential for post-pandemic social and economic recovery.

Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, February 9, 2021 — Cisco today published the 2021 Data Privacy Benchmark Study, its fourth annual look into corporate privacy practices worldwide, which found enhanced importance of privacy protections pandemic and increasing benefits for businesses that adopt strong privacy measures. The independent, anonymized survey analyzed the responses of 4,400 security and privacy professionals across 25 countries and explored attitudes towards privacy legislation and the emergence of privacy metrics being reported to executive management.

At a time of disruption and uncertainty due to the pandemic, people have been suddenly expected, and at times required, to share their personal information to help curtail the spread of COVID-19. Simultaneously, people have shifted much of their lives online, accelerating a trend that normally would have taken years. These mass-scale shifts in human interaction and digital engagement presented many challenging data privacy issues for organizations that aim to follow the law and stop the spread of the pandemic while respecting individual rights. Consumers and the general public are growing increasingly concerned about how their personal data is being used.

With the increasingly critical role of privacy during the pandemic, the survey revealed that budgets continue to grow for organizations in the Kingdom, hitting $2.1 million this year. The business value associated with these investments also remained high, with 78 percent of Saudi organizations saying privacy investment creates significant benefits in “Enabling Innovation.” Moreover, privacy legislation in Saudi Arabia has been well received. The vast majority (98%) say external privacy certifications are a buying factor when selecting a vendor or product to properly validate personal data.

Across the 25 countries surveyed, other key findings from the report include:

Privacy is much more than just a compliance issue as businesses now see it as a fundamental human right and a mission-critical C-suite priority.
60% of organizations say they weren’t prepared for privacy and security requirements involved in the shift to remote work
93% of organizations turned to their privacy teams to help navigate these challenges
87% of consumers expressed concerns about the privacy protections of the tools they needed to use to work, interact and connect remotely
90% of organizations now reporting privacy metrics to their C-suites and boards
There is a clear shift in the market towards standardizing privacy as a non-negotiable requirement when digitizing and advancing business objectives.
More than 140 jurisdictions have now passed omnibus privacy laws, and nearly 80% of respondents found these laws to have a positive impact
Most people agree with sharing health information for workplace safety and pandemic response but are uncomfortable with other uses such as research.
57% supported employers using data to help make workplaces safe, while less than half supported location tracking, contact tracing, disclosing information about infected individuals, and using individual information for research
Privacy and the larger cybersecurity ecosystem will play a key role in the road to economic growth and COVID-19 pandemic recovery.
As economies and communities begin to recover, many important challenges will arise that will test how governments, companies, and individuals collect, manage and protect personal data while balancing individual rights with the public interest
Privacy investment continues to be attractive, with 75% of organizations seeing significant business value in terms of mitigating security losses, enhanced agility and innovation, improved operational efficiency, and improved customer loyalty and trust
Over one-third of organizations are getting benefits at least twice their investment

“Privacy has come of age – recognized as a fundamental human right and rising to a mission-critical priority for executive management,” noted Reem Asaad, Vice President, Cisco Middle East, and Africa. “And with the accelerated move to work from anywhere, privacy has taken on greater importance in driving digitization, corporate resiliency, agility, and innovation.”