Securiti Named a 2022 Cool Vendor in Data Security by Gartner
Download NowBlogs
Published on August 16, 2021 AUTHOR - Privacy Research Team
Singapore enacted the Personal Data Protection Act (the "PDPA") in 2012, which came into force in different phases; the provisions concerning data protection were enforced on 2nd July 2014. The PDPA applies to any organization that deals with the collection, use, and/or disclosure of personal data (stored in electronic and non-electronic forms) from individuals in Singapore, whether the organization is located in Singapore or not. Recruitment companies, employment agencies, head-hunters, and other similar organizations are also subject to the Data Protection Provisions of the PDPA.
This article provides a guide to the Human Resource Management Team (HRM Team) of an organization aiming to comply with the PDPA. Following are the key obligations under the PDPA that an HRM Team must consider while handling personal data of job applicants and current and former employees.
As per Sections 13 and 14 of the PDPA, an organization must obtain the consent of the individual before collecting, using, or disclosing his/her personal data for a purpose. However, in the employment context, an employer can process its employees' data without consent if:
When an individual voluntarily provides his personal data to an organization in the form of a job application, he may be deemed to consent to the organization collecting, using, and disclosing the personal data for the purpose of assessing his job application.
If the individual is subsequently employed, it would be reasonable for the employer to continue to use the personal data provided by the individual/employee in the job application form for the purpose of managing the employment relationship with the individual.
If the employer wishes to use the personal data for purposes for which consent may not be deemed or to which there is no applicable exception under the PDPA, the employer must then inform the employee of those purposes and obtain his/her consent.
The PDPA does not require organizations or recruitment agencies to obtain the consent of the individual when collecting or using personal data that is publicly available. Where the personal data is not publicly available but is voluntarily made available by the individual on a job-search portal for being contacted for prospective job opportunities, the individual may be deemed to have consented to the collection, use, and disclosure of his personal data for such purpose. So it would be right to state that where social networking sources (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin) are publicly available, the PDPA does not prohibit organizations from collecting personal data about the individual without his consent.
The Securiti Consent Management Solution offers organizations a complete consent orchestration platform with customizable endpoints, configurable workflows, and comprehensive record keeping. This solution can help organizations easily honor consumer consent and maintain compliance with privacy regulations.
Securiti can help organizations map data to their owners, create privacy notices and incorporate sensitive data intelligence to ensure that all data protection principles are complied with.
As per Sections 18 and 20 of the PDPA, an employer must notify the job applicant or employee of the purpose(s) for which the employer intends to collect, use, or disclose his/her personal data on or before such collection, use, or disclosure, and may only collect, use, and disclose personal data for such purposes. An employer also needs to inform employees of the purpose for managing and terminating the employment relationship. This can be done by way of drafting relevant provisions in the employment contracts.
However, this obligation won't apply if:
Section 18 of the PDPA requires organizations to only use collected data for the purpose it was intended for. Employers must refrain from asking applicants for personal data that is not relevant to the job. Also, an employer has an obligation to make a reasonable effort to ensure that the personal data collected is accurate and complete.
Securiti has a privacy notice creation and management solution with pre-built expert-made templates which can be synced with your data maps to ensure your privacy policies are always up-to-date. The solution utilizes automation and data intelligence to continuously scan data stores, automatically update any changes to the collection, processing, sharing, selling, or retention of personal data, and updates the privacy notice automatically, in real-time, ensuring consistent compliance.
Section 25 allows organizations to only retain information that is necessary to store or if there is a valid business or legal purpose of storing the personal data. After an organization has decided which job applicant to hire, the personal data that the organization had collected from the other job applicants should only be kept for as long as it is necessary for business or legal purposes.
Securiti enables employers to maintain track of employees' data and consent with its data mapping automation tool. This tool will allow employers to know where the employee's data is in the data stores, what purpose it is being used for, and what consent they have from the employees.
As per Section 24 of the PDPA, employers must protect the personal data of employees in their possession or under their control in order to prevent unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification, disposal, or similar risks.
The HRM team of an organization should consider adopting security arrangements that fit the nature of the personal data held by their organization and the possible harm that might result from a security breach.
As good practice, organizations should conduct risk assessments (e.g., Data Protection Impact Assessments) to assess the risks to the personal data they possess or control to determine appropriate security to control or mitigate these risks.
Securiti incorporates AI to enable Assessment Automation (PIAs, DPIAs, Readiness Assessments, Transfer Impact Assessments) to trigger and conduct risk-based assessments. It can further enable organizations to mitigate data exposures, remediate misconfigurations and discover risks within your organization.
As per Section 26C of the PDPA, once an employer has credible grounds to believe that a data breach has occurred (whether through self-discovery, alert from the public, or notification by your data intermediary), then the employer is required to take reasonable and expeditious steps to assess whether the data breach is notifiable under the PDPA.
And where the employer assesses that a data breach is a notifiable data breach, the employer must notify the PDPC as soon as it is practicable. On or after notifying the PDPC, the employer must also notify each affected employee affected by a notifiable data breach in any manner that is reasonable in the circumstances.
Securiti's Data Breach Management Solution swiftly identifies compromised data and impacted data subjects in a security incident. It utilizes built-in privacy research to help organizations deliver breach notifications within hours of a security incident.
While sharing an employee's personal data with external third parties and vendors such as HR services, security contractors, or medical insurance services, the employer must assess their privacy practices and their third-party/vendor's compliance with the PDPA' 's requirements.
Under Section 26 of the PDPA, an employer who transfers personal data of employees out of Singapore is required to take the following appropriate steps to:
Securiti's Vendor Management Solution allows organizations to assess their vendor's risk based on a predefined risk score. Securiti also offers cross-border data transfer risk assessments to help organizations identify and review data transfers outside Singapore.
Under sections 16, 21, and 22, current and former employees are given rights over their personal data which can be exercised, and the employer is required to fulfill these requests in a stipulated time frame. These rights include:
Securiti's DSR Automation Solution helps organizations simplify the process of fulfilling Data Subject Requests submitted by the employee. This automated system helps enterprises swiftly process data subject requests and enable coordination between stakeholders for reviews and approvals.
Employers can collect, use and disclose evaluative data without the consent of the individual. This can include monitoring an employee's emails and their use of computer network resources. However, employers should provide notices to employees if the CCTVs are in place at workstations and if they are monitoring their use of computer network resources. The employer may decide not to reveal the exact location of the CCTVs if the purpose is to covertly monitor the premises for security reasons. Employers should also conduct risk assessments and have sufficient technical measures in place for monitoring and to enable BYOD equipment for accessing or storing organization-collected personal data while respecting the personal data of their employees.
Securiti's helps keep privacy notices up-to-date with the help of robotic automation. The solution can help your organization build privacy notices in minutes, centralize management and reduce risks of errors.
HRM Team is required to meet the aforesaid requirements of the PDPA. To achieve compliance, organizations need to operationalize their processes.
This can be done in the following ways:
Performing these tasks through manual methods increases the risk of human error, not to mention increased costs and time taken. Organizations need to incorporate automation that can simplify the compliance process.
Securiti's Sensitive Data Intelligence Solution can help your organization to discover, analyze, and protect large datasets. It offers you a 360 solution to all your compliance needs. See a demo of our Sensitive Data Intelligence solution and let Securiti help you on your road to PDPA compliance.
Securiti also offers automated data mapping, DSR rights fulfillment, data breach management, and security controls to help you comply with the obligations required by the PDPA.
June 21, 2022
When the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) comes into effect, replacing the existing California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), organizations will have to change their current business practices around personal information handling. One significant change will be Regular Risk...
June 12, 2022
Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act (the "PDPA") is a comprehensive data privacy law that aims to protect the privacy of Thailand’s citizens. The PDPA was said to go into effect on 27 May 2020. However, the PDPA went...
June 3, 2022
Data privacy laws have gained increased importance worldwide in the past couple of years. Multiple factors have played a role in this phenomenon, the most important being the necessity to protect users’ data, freedom, and rights to privacy....
[email protected]
PO Box 13039,
Coyote CA 95013
Break Silos of Sensitive Data & Risk Understanding across Multicloud and self managed systems. Common grammar, policies and reporting
Key Features
Find data assets, and discover personal and sensitive data in structured and unstructured data systems, across on-premises and multi-cloud.
Key Features
Classify & label data to ensure appropriate security controls are enabled on most sensitive data in your organization
Key Features
Collect, organize, enrich and build a data catalog to address privacy, security and governance solutions
Key Features
Connect to structured and unstructured data sources and automatically discover and build a relationship map between personal data and its owner.
Key Features
Assess risk scores for every data asset, asset location, or personal data category
Key Features
Auto discover personal data in Snowflake and enforce access governance
Key Features
Auto discover personal data in Snowflake and enforce access governance
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Workday. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Box. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Slack. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Github. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Jira. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Dropbox. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in SAP Successfactors. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Servicenow. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Zendesk. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Apache Hive. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Apache Spark SQL. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Cassandra. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Discover, classify, manage and protect sensitive data in Couchbase. Automate data subject rights fulfillment and maintain compliance with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PCI and more.
Key Features
Enable privacy by design through the AI driven PrivacyOps platform
Key Features
Maintain your Data Catalog with continuous automated updates
Key Features
Automate data subject rights request fulfillment and maintain proof of compliance
Key Features
Connect to structured and unstructured data sources and automatically discover and build a relationship map between personal data and its owner.
Key Features
Audit once and comply with many regulations. Collaborate and track all internal assessments in one place.
Key Features
Automation of privacy assessment collection from third parties, collaboration among stakeholders, follow-ups and compliance analytics.
Key Features
Automate global cookie consent compliance.
Key Features
Simplify and automate universal consent management.
Key Features
Automate the incident response process by gathering incident details, identifying the scope and optimizing notifications to comply with global privacy regulations.
Key Features
Keeping privacy notices up-to-date made easy
Key Features
Operationalize GDPR compliance with the most comprehensive PrivacyOps platform
Key Features
Operationalize CCPA compliance with the most comprehensive PrivacyOps platform
Key Features
Revolutionize LGPD compliance through PrivacyOps
Key Features
Identify data risk & enable protection and control
Key Features
Discover data assets, detect & catalog sensitive data in it
Key Features
Classify and label data to ensure appropriate security controls
Key Features
Monitor data security posture and identify external and internals risks to data security
Key Features
Policy based alerts and remediations to protect data from external and internal threats
Key Features
Investigate data security issues and take remediation actions
Key Features
Snowflake is a cloud based data warehouse that allows organizations to run large scale data analytics projects to uncover business insights, run or train machine learning models, and modernize their data infrastructure.
Key Features
Microsoft O365 is the ubiquitous productivity suite for every business worker. Users rely on Office products such as OneDrive and SharePoint to collaborate with their co-workers.
Key Features
Organizations want to migrate their on-premises data to cloud data stores to take advantage of scale and flexibility while reducing operational cost of managing on-premises infrastructure. However, due to privacy regulations such as GDPR, CCPA administrators have to ensure that data is migrated in compliance with these laws.
Key Features
Protecting sensitive content is a priority for all organizations, however, due to volume of sensitive content and
Key Features
While data aids in business decision making, global privacy regulations such as GDPR, CPRA require organization to identify personal & sensitive data & use only for its intended purpose and implement adequate protection.
Key Features
The CDMC Framework sets up controls that companies should put in place, and establishes clear guidelines around data accountability, governance, classification, usage, protection and privacy.
CDMC Framework
Securiti enables organizations to meet multiple regulations around the world and helps with compliance requirements through AI-driven PI data discovery, DSR automation, documented accountability, enhanced visibility into data processing activities and AI-driven process automation.
Securiti is a complete PrivacyOps Solution.
View all solutionsThe California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) was signed into law on June 28, 2018 and is scheduled to come into effect on January 01, 2020. Often compared to GDPR, CCPA protects consumers from mismanagement of their personal data and gives the consumer control over what data is collected, processed, shared or sold.
Key Features
The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) will take effect from January 1, 2023, and will apply to personal information collected on or after January 1, 2022. Enforcement of the CPRA will start six months later (July 1, 2023). The CPRA builds upon the CCPA, strengthening user privacy for California residents.
Key Features
The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect on May 25, 2018 and changed the global privacy landscape. It has broadened the definition of processing activities and personal data, impacting companies worldwide, and has tightened the rules to obtain consent before processing information.
Key Features
The Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD) is modeled with similarities to the General European Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and contains sixty-five articles. It was approved on August 14, 2018 and its validity has undergone several changes, the last relevant fact being MPV 959. LGPD is in effect since September 18, 2020. The sanctions by the ANPD (Brazilian Data Protection Authority) were postponed to August 2021. The LGPD allows people have more rights over their data and expects organizations to comply with their regulations or face heavy penalties or fines.
Key Features
China has complex data protection and data security regime, however, the following are three main laws that primarily cover China’s data protection and data security regulatory framework. These laws are:
Frameworks
UAE have number of laws in place that govern privacy as well as data security in the UAE. Some of those includes:
Frameworks
The government of New Zealand has recently replaced its long-existing Privacy Act of 1993 with a modernized version, the Privacy Act 2020. The New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (NZPA) will take effect from December 1, 2020.
Key Features
The Personal Data Protection Act, B.E. 2562 (2019) ('PDPA') is Thailand's first consolidated data protection law, which was published in the Thai Government Gazette on 27 May 2019. This law was said to go into effect on 27 May 2020. However, in May 2020, the Thai Cabinet through a Royal Decree has deferred the enforcement of certain data protection provisions of the PDPA until 31 May 2021.
Key Features
In order to protect the data of individuals in South Africa, Parliament assented to the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) on 19th November 2013. The commencement date of section 1, Part A of Chapter 5, section 112 and section 113 was 11 April 2014. The commencement date of the remaining sections (excluding section 110 and 114(4)) was 1st July 2020. As per the Regulator’s Operational Readiness Plan the Regulator will be able to take enforcement actions for the violation of POPIA by July 1st 2021.
Key Features
Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) comprises various provisions governing the collection, disclosure, use, and care of personal data. It recognizes the rights of individuals to have more control over their personal data and the needs of organizations to collect, use, or disclose personal data for legitimate and reasonable purposes.
Key Features
The Canadian data laws aim to give consumers control over their data and promote greater transparency about how organizations use data containing personal identifiers.
Frameworks
The Australian data laws aim to give consumers control over their data and promote greater transparency about how organizations use data containing personal identifiers.
Frameworks
After the invalidation of Privacy Shield, many companies are relying on the SCCs in order to continue transferring data of EU citizens to companies based in countries who are not deemed adequate for data transfer.
After the CJEU judgement, it is clear that these companies have to conduct Risk Assessments with the data recipients in these countries in order to ensure they have enough controls to mitigate any potential data or regulatory risk.
Key Features
On January 31, 2020, the government of Saudi Arabia issued the Executive Regulations to the Saudi E-Commerce Law 2019 (“ECL”) that was in effect since October 2019. The Executive Regulations together with the ECL (“Law”) aim to protect consumers’ personal data by requiring organizations to take appropriate technical and administrative measures.
Key Features
Turkey was one of the first countries to start the trend of legislating data protection. Turkey published “Law on the Protection of Personal Data No. 6698 (LPPD) covering personal data protection on April 07, 2016.” The LPPD is based on the European Union Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and has several similarities with the GDPR. It aims to give data subjects’ control over their personal data and outlines obligations that organizations and individuals dealing with personal data must comply with. The LPPD has also provided comprehensive guidelines for the transfer of personal data to the third parties.
Key Features
In December 2019, India, following several other countries' footsteps on the privacy laws' developments, introduced the Personal Data Protection Bill (PDPB) to regulate the processing, collection, and storage of personal data. However, in November 2021, the bill’s name was amended to now be called the Data Protection Bill 2021 (DPB).
Key Features
The Irish Data Protection Act, 2018 (Irish DPA) implements the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and transposes the European Union Law Enforcement Directive in Ireland. Since it incorporates most of the provisions from the GDPR and the Law Enforcement Directive with limited additions and deletions as per the national law, it is considered to be the principal data protection legislation in Ireland.
Key Features
The Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Cap. 486) as amended in 2012 (the “PDPO) is the primary legislation in Hong Kong which was enacted to protect the privacy of individuals’ personal data, and regulate the collection, holding, processing, disclosure, or use of personal data by the organizations.. The Data Protection Principles ( the “DPPs or DPP ''), which are contained in Schedule 1 to the PDPO, outline how entities should collect, handle, disclose, and use personal data.
Key Features
In 2012, the Philippines passed the comprehensive privacy law, Data Privacy Act 2012 Republic Act. No, 10173 (the "DPA"). The DPA recognizes the rights of individuals to have more control over their personal data while ensuring a free flow of information to promote innovation and growth.
Key Features
South Korea has a general law and several special laws that cover data protection and individuals' privacy. South Korea's data protection regime is considered one of the strictest data protection regimes owing to its notification requirements, opt-in consent, extensive data subject rights, mandatory data breach notifications, and heavy sanctions in case of non-compliance.
Key Features
The Act on the Protection of Personal Information (the "APPI'') regulates personal related information and applies to any Personal Information Controller (the “PIC''), that is a person or entity providing personal related information for use in business in Japan. The APPI also applies to the foreign PICs which handle personal information of data subjects (“principals”) in Japan for the purpose of supplying goods or services to those persons.
Key Features
Qatar is the first gulf country that has passed a national data privacy law and has paved the way for all other gulf countries to follow suit. In 2016, Qatar enacted Law no. 13 Concerning Personal Data Protection (the “DPL”). Qatar became the first Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member state to issue an “European Style” applicable data protection law. The DPL establishes a certain degree of personal data protection, provides data subject rights, and prescribes the guidelines for organizations for the processing of personal data within Qatar.
Key Features
Bahrain has become a part of the countries that have enacted a data privacy regulation to protect the rights of their residents. On 12 July 2018, Bahrain drafted its law on data protection regulation, Law No. 30. This then went on to go into effect on the 1st of August 2019 as the Bahrain Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) and supersedes all other laws. The PDPL recognizes the rights of individuals to have more control over their personal data and the needs of organizations to collect, use, or disclose personal data for legitimate purposes.
Key Features
After the Success of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in California, Virginia is now following the same path. The Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA) has been passed and will go into effect on 1st of January 2023. This law is closely designed after the newer California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) but with a few significant and important differences.
Key Features
After the VCDPA in Virginia, Colorado has closely followed suit and has passed their own comprehensive data privacy law to protect the personal data of the residents of Colorado.The Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) was signed into law on the 8th of July, 2021 and has been modelled closely after the VCDPA.
Key Features
Saudi Arabia has drafted a data privacy regulation to protect the personal data of individuals in Saudi Arabia. This law was approved by the Council of Ministers in Saudi Arabia and is named the Personal Data Protection Law (the “PDPL”).
Key Features
Uganda’s Data Protection and Privacy Act 2019 seeks to protect Uganda’s citizens and their personal data by outlining and implementing rules for processing personal data and sensitive personal data by entities within or outside the country.
Key Features
Ghana Data Protection Act 2012 establishes a comprehensive set of provisions governing the collection, processing, use, and protection of personal data by the data controller or data processor.
Key Features
Kenya’s Data Protection Act, 2019 (DPA) is based on the framework of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), making it the third region in East Africa to have enacted and enforced data protection regulations.
Key Features
Malaysia’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) was passed by the Parliament of Malaysia on 2 June 2010. The PDPA sets out a complete cross-sectoral framework to protect the personal data of individuals with respect to commercial transactions.
Key Features
Although there is no comprehensive data protection law in Indonesia, however, there are several regulations that regulate the Indonesia's draft Personal Data Protection Bill (PDPB) & Personal Data Protection Regulations (PDP Regulations)
Frameworks
Oman’s Personal Data Protection Law (Oman’s PDPL) has been published in the country’s official gazette, and it will come into force by February 9, 2023, one year after its issuance which was February 9, 2022. The law applies to any natural person’s personal data including but not limited to their name, location data, identification number, and health-related information.
Key Features
Kuwait’s Data Privacy Protection Regulations (DPPR) applies to all public and private Telecommunication Services Providers and related industry sectors who collect, process, and store personal data and user-related content in whole or in part of a data storage system, whether processed inside or outside the State of Kuwait.
Key Features
The Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) protects Sri Lankan residents’ data while regulating how organizations collect, process, store, and maintain this data. The PDPA also grants users a wide range of data subject rights, meant to give them more control over their data.
Key Features
Issued on 27 July 2006, the Russian Federal Law on Personal Data (No. 152-FZ) remains one of the oldest data protection laws in effect today. Moreover, it is one of the few laws enacted before the EU's landmark General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Key Features
Germany’s Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (BDSG) in German, or the Federal Data Protection Act in English, was enacted in May 2018 to implement the GDPR in Germany.
Key Features
The Data Protection Act (DPA) of 2018 was passed in April 2016 and came into effect on May 25, 2018. This was the same day the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect.
Key Features
Directive 2002/58/EC on Privacy and Electronic Communications, known more prominently as the ePrivacy Directive, is a key set of instructions released to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of all electronic communications within the European Union (EU).
Key Features
The New York State Department of Financial Service Cybersecurity Regulations or 23 NYCRR 500 is a set of 23 cybersecurity requirements mandatory for all financial institutions registered in New York working under its Banking Law, Insurance Law, or Financial Services Law.
Key Features