The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) is a Canadian law that applies to organizations that collect, use, or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities. PIPEDA sets out the rules for how organizations must handle personal information, and gives individuals the right to access their personal information and request corrections to it.
As part of your PIPEDA compliance, you need to ensure that any servers holding customer data is PIPEDA compliant. To do so there are a few things you need to do.
1) Perform System Hardening (Safeguards)
System hardening is the process of making a system more resistant to attack. This can be done by improving security controls, reducing system vulnerabilities, and increasing the overall security of the system. System hardening is important because it helps to protect systems from being compromised by attackers. By hardening systems, we make it more difficult for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities and gain access to sensitive data. PIPEDA requires that an organization has the proper safeguards to protect personal information within the organization.
2) Limited Access (limited use and disclosure)
It is important to limit access to the server to only those who need it. By doing this, you can reduce the chances of unauthorized access and improve the security of the server. PIPEDA mandates that companies implement limited use and disclosure of personal information to only those that need access to perform their jobs.
3) Limit Data Retention (limited data retention)
Most data retention policies are too long and don’t protect people’s privacy. Data retention is the practice of storing data for a certain period of time, and it’s something that many companies do in order to comply with laws and regulations. But in many cases, data retention policies are excessively long and they don’t protect people’s privacy. PIPEDA mandates that Canadian companies have limited data retention, only keeping information for as long as it is necessary for a suitable business purpose.
4) Integrity Checks (Accuracy)
The concept of data integrity is important in many fields, including computer science, information security, and data storage. A data integrity check is a process that verifies the accuracy and consistency of data. It is used to ensure that data has not been lost or corrupted during transmission or storage.
There are many different types of data integrity checks, but the most common are checksums and hashes. A checksum is a mathematical function that can be used to verify the accuracy of data. A hash is a cryptographic function that is used to verify the integrity of data.
Data integrity checks are important for ensuring the accuracy of data. PIPEDA mandates that companies have controls and processes in place to ensure the accuracy of personal data.
5) Have Proper Logging (Accountability)
When it comes to user accountability, logging is essential. Logging allows you to track the user’s activity and see whether they are following the company’s policies and procedures. Logging is important to have a record of what was done on your server in relation to personal information. It’s also important to record who performed those actions and when.
Recap!
There are a number of steps that organizations can take to make their servers PIPEDA compliant. These steps include ensuring that personal information is only collected for specific, legitimate purposes; ensuring that the information is accurate and up-to-date; ensuring that the information is only used for the purposes for which it was collected and ensuring that the information is protected against unauthorized access or disclosure.
Related blog: What is PIPEDA and its purpose?
Must Read: How do you comply with PIPEDA?
Best Read: How to ensure my AWS Environment is PIPEDA compliant
