In recent years, consumer data privacy has become a hot topic for businesses collecting personal information and governments regulating how that information is managed. In fact, it's what prompted the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) of 2018 to be put into law. This legislation offers transparency and individual control to California residents as to how a business uses the data it collects.
The bounds of the law aren't restricted to businesses headquartered in the state but anyone who has Californian customers. Implications of CCPA also make it so businesses must emphasize all components of private data management such as data security, how data is collected, data destruction capabilities, and data distribution to third parties.
That matters because it requires these companies to review the security technology currently adopted to ensure it meets the regulatory requirements. That's especially important for security in the channel of which tons of data is collected and transmitted — email.
CCPA and email security
Email serves as a primary mechanism for data collection and transfer because of its ease of use and the fact almost everyone at a company has email access. Because of these factors and the reality that marketing campaigns are often mass-deployed via email, companies need to evaluate email-security solutions that address three primary CCPA aspects:
- Prevention of (accidental and malicious) email data breaches
- Protection of private data as it's used in the scope of email
- Ability to easily audit and evaluate an email network for non-compliance and potential security vulnerabilities
The result of failing to meet these email security requirements is a financial liability in the form of penalties issued by the California attorney general. There's also increased susceptibility to lawsuits from a company's customers. CCPA includes provisions that make it easy for consumers to bring about lawsuits due to lacklustre email security controls, regardless of whether harm is actually inflicted.
So how do you find the best email security platform that meets CCPA compliance?
Finding the right CCPA compliance platform
The best email security platform offers a combination of robust security capabilities, ease of use for users at all technical levels, and cost-friendly options. Additionally, it'll meet ALL of the requirements of CCPA in the scope of email-security management.
There should also be preventative controls that detect potentially incorrect email recipients and ensure correct files are attached for certain recipients. Furthermore, mechanisms would be in place to prevent sending non-compliant emails while also ensuring Bcc is used to hide email identities for mass email campaigns.
The right CCPA compliant platform would also protect regulated data by applying message-level encryption. There would even be enhanced control for email recall, message access restrictions, and watermarking for confidential information. Moreover, protection systems would utilize automation and machine learning to mitigate incidents caused by human error.
Lastly, to meet the audit requirements of CCPA, an email-security platform should be able to generate compliance reports on-command for the corporate email network. These reports should reference areas of non-compliance that were detected during the evaluation. Data subject access requests (DSAR) by consumers should be quickly fulfilled, and a system needs to be in place to delete personal consumer data from the email network when demanded.
Why Egress Protect is the solution
Egress Protect addresses email security and CCPA compliance in an all-in-one platform. Through well-constructed features and intelligence tools, this platform assists in preventing email data breaches while also protecting regulated data through encryption and recipient access control.
Egress Protect also supports DSAR and audits data flow within an email channel. Not only does this solution put your firm in compliance with CCPA, but it also offers strong mobile capabilities on iOS and Android devices so you can manage on-the-go. There's even integration support for your favorite applications such as Microsoft 365, Sophos, Ironport Systems, Forcepoint, and McAfee.
