2019 Trends Overview: Compliance, Privacy and Security Family Tree

There are subtle but important differences between compliance, privacy and security. All three are related and overlap to some extent, but each has a specific purpose. Compliance regulations are guard rails that serve to protect the public interest from unethical, negligent or illegal activity within a corporate function or given industry. Think Sarbanes-Oxley rules to oversee and standardize corporate financial reporting, or Security Exchange Commission (SEC) rules around trading on public markets. Privacy regulations, on the other hand, are about keeping non-public information from exposure and protecting assumed rights around an individual to purchase products and services without their information — be it financial, political or demographic — from misuse or exposure to criminal elements that can leverage this information to their financial gain at the expense of the affected consumer. Compliance and privacy are perhaps fraternal twins; whereas, security is their cousin. Security regulations are designed to detect misuse at the hands of insider practitioners, and to keep outsiders, such as criminals, from infiltrating business environments and stealing or manipulating privileged information.