I am often baffled on how often I need to explain the importance of backing up business data. Personally I feel like I need to backup my own personal data two or three times out of fear that I’ll loose years worth of my life in photographs. Those feelings of fear do not seem to translate to everyone when it comes to their business data, but maybe it should.

What type of compliance does my business need?

Depending on the industry there may be multiple layers of security and data compliance regulations that are required by law. Most businesses have at least one industry compliance measure that requires some degree of security and backups. Not meeting compliance on these measures can result in fines, penalties, and in some cases close down the business.

Many compliance measures require some level of security and safeguarding be in place with business data. If your business keeps record of personal information like name, address, phone numbers, emails, etc. or even more sensitive data like financial or medical there are strict rules to how you protect that data. One layer of protection is how you’re going to keep it stored and ensure that it does not get lost.

What do backups have to do with compliance?

Backing up data ensures that data is protected from being lost due to unintentional actions, failure or disaster. Imagine running a medical office and losing a server that stored information about patients treatments. If that server is not backed up that data is gone and could set patients and doctors behind by weeks, months or years in their treatment. In this scenario people’ lives are affected drastically not to mention the compliance fees and fines that the office may face. Due to scenarios like these there is often a backup strategy that is required in most compliance regulations.

What compliance measures does my business need to address?

If you’re not sure what requirements your business needs to meet we’ve made a list below of different compliance regulations by industry. If you want to know how we can help you become complaint on any of these regulations or other feel free to contact our team so we can be your guide.

Finance:
• Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)
• Basel II
• Electronic Fund Transfer Act, Regulation E (EFTA)

Healthcare:
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Health Information Technology for Economic Clinical Health (HITECH)
• GDPR

Education:
• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
• Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
• Data Protection Act (UK)

Government Compliance Regulations:
• Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIs)
• Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA)

General Business:
• Sarbanes Oxley Act
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DDS)
• Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act

State Specific:
• Massachusetts 201 CMR 17 (Mass Data Protection Law)
• Nevada Personal Information Data Privacy Encryption Law (NRS 603A)

International:
• Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPED Act)
• European Union Data Protection Directive