Corporate Privacy Spend Is Rising—And Bringing Legal Departments Along With It

Companies are fast realizing that a sound privacy compliance posture can not only help their bottom line and bolster their legal department’s stature as a central business unit, but also, at the very least, net them some new tools and increase the privacy spend.

On Wednesday, privacy company Ethyca released a survey indicating that 74% of companies have plans to spend more on privacy in the coming year. The report drew responses from 100 C-level executives or decision-makers from companies located across a wide spectrum of industries and generally suggests that companies are talking privacy more seriously.

However, it also quotes the results of another recent Ethyca survey showing that 56% of over 200 general counsel respondents felt their company was unprepared for the number of privacy regulations emerging across the globe. But Cillian Kieran, founder of Ethyca, argued the influence of legal department GCs has ”unquestionably” grown since the early days of the General Data Protection Regulation and the more recent California Consumer Privacy Act.

“I think that many businesses, if they were honest, would probably assess that the GRC and the legal function in the organization did not have the mandate from a purchasing perspective to buy the technology and systems needed to assist in compliance,” he said.

But why are companies willing to spend on those items now? It could be that businesses are starting to see a clearer line drawn between privacy and their organization’s financial health. The survey found that 58% of respondents were worried about facing penalties.

Furthermore, 76% of respondents said they believe privacy issues will impact a potential customer’s willingness to do business with a company. Kieran reaffirmed that assertion, noting that consumers are increasingly wary about how organizations collect and process their data.

“So effectively if we continue to disabuse users’ rights around their information, they will invariably not share with us. And that gums up the works of data-driven businesses,” he said.

As for what specific tools…

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