Data privacy protection spending up but transparency lacking

Organizations across 26 countries have invested $2.7 million in consumer data privacy this year, a 125% increase over the $1.2 million privacy spending in 2020, TechRepublic reports. Seventy-four percent of organizations noted having either "significant" or "very significant" privacy investment benefits, with increased customer loyalty and trust, and reduced security losses being the greatest benefits, while 94% of respondents said that privacy benefits were greater than overall costs, according to a Cisco report. More privacy metrics have also been reported by organizations this year, with data breach status, impact assessments, and incident response being the most reported metrics. Meanwhile, privacy legislation was regarded to be positive by 79% of respondents, compared with only 6% who noted the negative effect of such laws. However, further data privacy reassurances to customers were regarded by 92% of respondents to be necessary. The findings showed that while companies have prioritized adherence to privacy laws, consumers were more focused on having clear information regarding the use of their data.