ISO 27001 Data Retention Policy Templates to Use in Your Company
Data is a vital part of making the right decision in business. And while the rising cost of GDPR may make some companies believe that data collection must now be more expensive and complex, the opposite is true.
The new era of data management includes it easier to collect and store your data instead of wasting time and money on multiple systems with different expiration dates. They understand how difficult it can be to meet obligations while also maintaining their momentum, so they’re picking up new practices that handle legal requirements and operational efficiency.
This article will highlight the importance of data retention and how to implement ISO 27001. You’ll learn why they’re essential and other benefits of implementing strict policies.
What is a Data Retention Policy?
A data retention policy is a set of rules that determines how long data has to keep within an organization.
The length of time and the types of data that have to include are specific to each organization. It is because there are both legal and operational implications associated with data retention.
When it comes down to it, every company has data that they either have to keep or destroy. But figuring out how to divide and manage information — especially with the increasing complications of GDPR — can be tricky.
The Importance of Data Retention
With data retention set at a minimum of 2 years, organizations must follow the process so that their data is used for legitimate purposes and held for the necessary time frame.
If an organization doesn’t provide the data requested by the user, it must give an honest explanation as to why they aren’t. It means that it’s essential to maintain your data with the proper level of granularity so that it can be readily identified, accessible, and reliable.
Organizations that lack a centralized data hub to manage their data across the enterprise are prone to end-of-life issues and tasked with looking after expired content. They must also proactively plan for the end of the retention period to avoid outliving their organization’s existence.
Creating a Data Retention Strategy
Before you start creating a data retention policy, you need to understand the full implications of a data retention policy from a legal, operational, and financial perspective. It is therefore recommended that organizations create a data retention strategy that outlines the following:
— Data categories: Which data categories are required, why, and what will be used for? It will help determine which data must be kept and for how long.
— Retention periods: The specific retention periods for each data category. These will base on the data type, its function within the organization, and any specific regulatory requirements the data must meet.
— Management method: The process of managing and organizing data within the business. It should include the necessary technology, tools, and procedures to enable the organization to store, organize, and make data easily accessible.
Example of ISO 27001 Templates for Your Data Retention Policy
A data retention policy is essential to any company’s information security management system. This policy outlines your company’s rules and regulations regarding how long they keep certain data types.
We’ve provided a data retention policy template sample based on the ISO 27001 standard to assist you in developing your data retention policy.
To begin, you’ll need to select the document type on the document’s first page. In this case, you’ll choose the “Data Retention” option.
From there, you can edit the rest of the document to fit the requirements of your organization. You can modify the document name, the title (which appears at the top of the paper), and the date.
Additionally, you can add your company’s logo, contact information, and other details as needed.
With the ISO 27001 Toolkit Demo, you can explore practical approaches to safeguarding sensitive data.
How Does a Data Retention Policy Work?
When creating a data retention strategy, you must ensure that the company follows guidelines. That’s why we offer a Data Retention Policy template. This policy outlines specific rules for how you can manage and store your data efficiently. It will also establish the process for requesting data from other businesses or team members.
Data retention policies are crucial to protect the business and its clients. You’ll need to implement the necessary technology and tools, like central data storage and searchable data lakes, allowing your organization to store, organize, access quickly, and make sense of data. These tools reduce time spent on tedious tasks and make it easy to comply with a policy.
Organize Your Existing Data
To protect your business’s sensitive data, you first need to understand the data currently embedded in your organization. It can include data across multiple tools and servers or anywhere else within your company.
To start, you will want to conduct an inventory of your current data landscape. It can include manipulating a data map where employees identify and document the location of data across the enterprise.
It will help you identify the current data and how it is organized. It will also enable you to determine which data sources most need centralized/managed storage.
Organizing and Managing Data
The next step is to centralize and manage your data to create a single source of truth for your data. Several options for consolidating and managing data include data lakes, data warehouses, and data hubs.
Data lakes are specifically designed to store large amounts of unstructured data in a searchable format. They allow you to store data at the source, regardless of the platform or application that it was created in.
Data warehouses are designed to store structured data and provide advanced analytics capabilities.
Data hubs provide a centralized platform for managing and storing data across multiple tools and applications.
They need a design to provide complete transparency across the entire organization and enable data to be easily accessible by authorized users. They also allow you to create custom rules and workflows that help the organization efficiently manage data.
When Data Is Automatically Purged
Data retention policies can determine that specific data should be automatically purged after a specified period.
It can include data mainly unimportant to the organization, such as test results and older, unhelpful versions of customer data.
It can help reduce the amount of storage space required by the business and make it easier to find the data you need when you need it.
When Data is Manually Purged
There may be specific data that you want to manually purge, even though it meets the criteria for an automatic deletion rule.
It may include data it must keep for legal reasons or ongoing business operations.
To manually purge data, you can create a deletion rule that quickly and easily deletes the specified data.
Benefits of Having a Written Data Retention Policy
A data retention policy will help you take control of your data by making sure it is appropriately managed. It can help you avoid data breaches and other costly mistakes by knowing how long you should keep specific data and how to store it properly.
If you do not have a data retention policy, you risk storing data for too long and violating federal regulations like HIPAA. It could result in hefty fines and other penalties.
Additionally, having a written data retention policy can help you meet customers’ needs when you are required to retain specific data for a certain amount of time. It can also help you make sure that you are securely storing data.
Key benefits of a data retention policy implementation
Data retention policies are essential for many organizations. Following an effective and ethical strategy can help avoid violating privacy laws and regulations related to data like HIPAA. Following a data preservation policy will also help you meet customers who may have time-bound requirements for specific data.
Furthermore, it can help you secure your data by knowing how long to keep it in your systems, where it is stored, and for what purpose.
Overall, a data retention policy is essential for any organization. It can help you avoid costly fines and penalties, meet customers’ needs, and secure your data.
Conclusion
Data is a critical asset that enables companies to make fast and accurate decisions. Therefore, businesses must proactively organize and manage their data to create a single source of truth across the enterprise. It will enable organizations to store, access efficiently, and use data as needed to support the business. It will also help simplify and automate the process of managing and storing data to reduce costs and make it easier to comply with GDPR.
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