Managing and protecting your customer data is a priority in light of some of the recent data breaches that have undermined consumer confidence. You don’t want to be the manager that has to inform customers that their information was stolen. Here are some of the techniques that you can employ in order to protect your customer’s privacy.

Develop Privacy Programs

A privacy policy should be more than just words that you put out there. You need to believe in protecting your customers’ privacy and take steps to manage your program effectively. Your commitment to customer safety will work to instill confidence in your business with your customers. To go along with your privacy program, you need to also implement software programs and firewall protection that will ensure that your system is secure.

Focus on Encryption

Encryption and software updates are critical to preventing hackers from exploiting your systems. Look into using IT consultant companies to afford you the greatest level of protection. This is even more important when it comes to maintaining the integrity of your company. If customers give you personal information, such as social security numbers and credit card numbers, you need to take the highest level of security possible to protect it.

Limit Access

Not everyone in your company needs to have access to all of your data on your customers. Adding in another layer of protection may help to protect your customers’ information from an invasion of privacy. Only those employees who need to see the information should be allowed access to it. This may even mean that they receive additional training when it comes to how to handle this type of information. Have these employees sign something that states that they will keep customer information confidential.

Destroy Old Files

When a customer no longer is active in your system, destroying their sensitive information is a good business practice. These types of files are less likely to be secured because a breach would likely go unnoticed for a time. Look into paper shredding services in order to protect your customers’ information if you keep any hard copies of records. Electronic records aren’t the only records that you likely have around the office. You don’t want these old records to fall into the wrong hands and give your company a bad reputation in the industry.

The management and protection of customer information helps to keep your business running. Use these methods so that you can protect your customer database from a potential loss or intrusion.