Common important software development regulatory compliances

Software development has become more regulatory than ever before. Companies providing software be it of any kind mobile apps, web apps, websites, or desktop based software, need to abide by the internations set of regulatory compliances to ensure that the product they are developing is safe, secure, and more importantly abides by the law of the land it will be used in. Failing to comply with these regulations might result in suspension of the software from a particular region.

Each industry of business has its set of regulatory compliances which every software development company must follow. It doesn’t matter whether the company is developing an in-house SaaS product, is a software startup, or is providing an offshore development service to the client. You need to follow these rules.

While there are many such regulations, we have tried to cover the most common set of regulations when followed will suffice 90% of the requirements.

Common software development regulations

1)?GDPR: GDPR is the most talked about compliance which the companies must follow if they wish to collect, store, and use the personal data in their systems. The regulation was introduced for the EU member states but, any company who is collecting, storing, or using the data of European citizens are mandated to follow the GDPR policy. GDPR is industry agnostic.

2)?HIPAA: HIPAA is an Act introduced in the US and is intended for the protection of medical and health records of the patients. If your software is in the healthcare industry and is collecting, storing, and using the EHR and EMR records, then the software should abide by the HIPAA act and should follow all the guidelines mentioned in the act. Failing to do so can attract serious consequences.

3) PCI DSS: A regulatory standard established to protect the card information of the individuals while purchasing online. Any software, mobile app, or web app which is processing the payments are required to comply with PCI DSS. It’s an added advantage to gain the trust of the users. It is mandated by major credit card companies like VISA, Mastercard, AMEX, and so on. Card number, CVV/CVC, expiration date, and other are some of the information protected. It is industry agnostic.

4)?COPPA: If your website or mobile app collects the data of children below 13 years of age, then you are liable to follow the COPPA act which was introduced to protect children’s personal data. This act is considered important as the purpose is to avoid the child abuse with the data software holds. Irrespective of the location of your company, if you are using children data, then you need to abide by this.

5)?SCORM: It is a set of rules ideally needed to be followed by the businesses and software involved in online training and education. It is implemented globally which allows content to be reused, tracked, and managed across different learning management systems.

6)?PIPEDA: A counterpart to European GDPR, PIPEDA is implemented in Canada and protects the personal data of the Canadians. Whether you are located in Canada or not, if your software is willing to use the data of the Canadians, it should abide by and be mandated by PIPEDA.

7) EU MDR: Are you developing an app which interacts with medical devices? If yes, then you need to abide by the EU MDR regulation. Initially introduced for the companies handling production and distribution of medical devices in the EU, it is not advisable for the software developers dealing in medical device integration to abide by this.

8)?APA: Australian Privacy Act can be considered as Australia’s GDPR. It is an Act aimed for fair and transparency in data collection, storage, usage, and sharing of the personal data of Australians. Irrespective of the industry or the location of the software provider, if you are dealing with personal data of Australians, you need to abide by it.

If you want to explore each regulation in detail, feel free to visit our exclusive blog on common important software development regulations .