Data Security Compliance Management

Abstract

In the last decade, both compliance management and data security grew in importance for companies everywhere. Standards on compliance management were updated and are constantly developed further and combined with ongoing technological advancements, data security gains more attention as well. Thereby, data security compliance management as a specialisation of compliance management grows more important as well and multiple regulations on data security and data protection were revised in the past years, such as for example the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018 or the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP). Particularly for smaller companies who do not yet have a data security compliance management system in place, the many different regulations including laws and standards to comply with appear to feel overwhelming. It seems to be difficult for companies to know and decide which measures are necessary and should be taken first to ensure compliance with every relevant data security requirement. Nevertheless, based on a systematic literature review there appears to be a gap when it comes to research-based, peer-reviewed concepts that support companies in building a compliance management system which focuses specifically on the requirements for data security compliance. Therefore, this research’s objective was to develop a comprehensive tool that supports smaller Swiss companies that might not yet have a data security compliance management system in place on their first steps towards building such a system.