Benefits, Attributes and Habits of Mature Privacy and Data Protection Programs

The IAPP, in partnership with FairWarning, set out to identify characteristics and behaviors of privacy and data protection teams. To drive this survey, we asked more than 550 professionals — in-house privacy and data protection professionals, in-house IT professionals, in-house compliance professionals — from around the world a series of questions about how privacy functions are supported through the lenses of people, process and technology.

Two-thirds of the survey respondents are in North America and work for organizations headquartered mainly in the U.S. or the EU. Professionals in the software and health care industries are the two largest sectors represented, and almost 70% of the feedback came from chief compliance officers or privacy directors. Respondents were distributed across a range of small, medium and large organizations.

The survey gathered input on metrics, such as team structure, program priorities, use of software monitoring tools, and data breach and privacy incident reporting. Additionally, we asked respondents to provide insight into things like the level of maturity of their privacy/data protection programs and their confidence level in complying with various regulations, such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation.