Data protection & data security

Information management is still a work in progress for many companies

The digitalisation is still a long way from being complete in many businesses. For a lot of companies, particularly SMEs, content management processes are a mixture of paper-based and digital processes. Whether invoices, contracts or employee information – a huge volume of office work is still very much shaped by working on paper. The fault lines between the digital- and paper-based parts of a process are a source of errors and inefficiencies.

Information management system that provides a safe framework

„No information management approach can be planned independently of data security and data protection – and vice versa.”

Through intelligent information management, businesses can start to meet their obligations – irrespective of the hybrid nature of many businesses’ content management environment. For example, paper-based processes can make the timely deletion of data harder to ensure, but digital solutions can help to automate the governance process.

A holistic information management approach requires protection of every data flow including data generation, processing and storage, with continuous encryption used at every stage. So, critical threats to business such as corporate espionage or data theft can fend off.

With regards to Article 32 of GDPR, sensitive information in areas like HR and customer data requires very high levels of protection in terms of storage, access and processing. The consequences of non-compliance can not only involve punitive fines but also have a disastrous impact on a company’s reputation and business value.

Workforce that uses the system correctly

Technology is evolving to take on data security challenges, but any truly effective solution is as much about the human dimension, too.

As data security measures become increasingly powerful, hackers are more often targeting the weak links that remain – employees. This is why social engineering methods are a growing threat. People’s helpfulness is still one of the easiest ways to gain the necessary information. As a result, any effective data protection and data security strategy must factor employees and their behaviour into the equation.

Also, whether for convenience or simply to achieve things that aren’t possible using approved services, employees seek out workarounds and utilise unsecure processes such as unsafe file sharing methods or circulating Excel sheets that contain sensitive customer data.

Konica Minolta’s approach: Information management systems secure by design

Konica Minolta’s product and service offerings in the field of secure data and information management include collaboration, optimised contract management, invoice processing and a smart document/ information search function. Among all solutions, we adopt the principal of data protection by design and by default, ensuring the data is always stored and backed up in a way that complies with applicable legal requirements.

We give you the ability to stay ahead of the unique and rigorous legislative environment. As a European company, our data centres are located in Germany and Sweden, with new centres being established in other countries such as Denmark, for example. This ensures data stays within Europe and is not subject to legislation from other countries such as the US Patriot Act.

People’s helpfulness is still one of the easiest ways to gain the necessary information. Therefore, during a penetration test, our security consultants from Konica Minolta conduct communicated social engineering attacks to pinpoint the possibilities, while raising awareness among employees.