The event industry is a data-rich target for hackers. Every event generates an abundance of data (contact details, payment information, dietary requirements, and much more) that ultimately gets shared with a variety of people involved with the event.?
There is no doubt this data gold mine is important to your organization. It can inform your communications strategy, assist the sales team with the deals in their pipeline, and drive decisions about sessions and topics for the program.
Collecting and then moving this data across the event ecosystem makes the event industry a hot target for hackers. Keeping this information private must be a top priority for event professionals everywhere.
Not sure where to start? Here are seven (7) tips to get you started.
- Make sure your event platform is secure. Every platform provider should have documentation about their data security measures and the steps they take to protect your event data. Pro tip: find a provider with two-factor or multifactor authentication and single sign-on.
- Pay attention to vendor contracts and agreements. If their contracts don’t spell out their data security plan, that’s a red flag you should address with them.
- Check your integrations. Your event platform may be sharing data with other platforms in your marketing tech stack (Salesforce, Hubspot, Gong, etc.) and these integrations may be vulnerable to attacks.?
- Train your event staff to recognize phishing attempts and malware. A Stanford research study found that 88% of data breaches are caused by employee errors. There are some great resources out there to get you started. It doesn’t take a lot of time to implement.
- Encrypt all documents. Multifactor verification should be required, even if you are storing everything in the cloud.?
- Understand GDPR Compliance. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a central federal policy that came into effect on May 25, 2018. GDPR dictates how businesses, governments, and other organizations can process, store, and use the personal data of EU citizens and residents.?
- Learn about US Data Privacy Laws. The United States doesn’t have a single overarching data privacy law like the EU. In fact, only three states have privacy laws in effect: Nevada, Maine, and California. The gold standard, and the best comparison to the GDPR, is the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
The most valuable asset to every event is people. Make sure you take a little time to understand data privacy and adopt a process that will protect your event data…and ultimately your event brand.
