The need for privacy and protection of intellectual property is a big deal to all businesses regardless of their size and it becomes even more pronounced once you make the decision to outsource. If you are not careful, you might run the risk of jeopardizing your clients’ and customers’ privacy. Already, there have a been a few high-profile cases in the past few years of this happening. You must see this as an excuse not to outsource but instead put in place systems that ensure that your clients and customers’ data is secure. Even as you hire virtual assistants to help with your business, you must never compromise these records and confidential data.

The following are some minimal standards that should be followed with any customer / client data that you hand off to virtual assistants:

• Stamp or otherwise mark documents as “Confidential”. This at least serves as notice that you consider it an extreme breach of professional protocol for one of your virtual assistants to be careless with the information.
• Provide clear directives to every virtual assistant regarding confidential business information and trade secrets through confidentiality agreements, as well as printing them in your company handbook.
• Limit knowledge of sensitive information to virtual assistant on a “need to know” basis.
• Create and institute password entry for computer files which contain sensitive information. Change these passwords frequently. For instance, if a virtual assistant only needs to work on a confidential file for one day, give her a password for that day only, and then change the pass code.
• Make use of non-disclosures. Only share information with virtual assistants, business associates and vendors through well-designed non-disclosure contracts.
• Keep all data backups secure from external manipulation. Unless you know of a specific reason why a virtual assistant must have access to that backup, do not grant it to him.
• Track user access to sensitive data so that you always know when a virtual assistant accesses it.
• Set up a firewall for your virtual assistant. Before your virtual assistant ever works with your company data, make sure that they are protecting it with their own computer firewall.

Protect & Secure. Seriously!

So what’s the reason for this blog post? Even though I know I have not fully exhausted all the ways you can ensure privacy and security when you outsource, my goal with this blog post is to start the conversation in your mind because almost every business has confidential information; even the mom-and-pop diner down the street does. They likely have credit card information, and even if they don’t take credit cards, they probably have addresses and phone numbers of customers from their checks. Hence, it’s hard to imagine a situation where you will outsource any kind of work to anyone without informing them of your confidentiality policies. In fact, a detailed confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement should be a part of the paperwork that you require them to sign before beginning your working relationship with them. Contained in this agreement should be a description of what information is considered sensitive, policies regarding how they should deal with that information, and, just as important, the penalty if they should be careless with that information. And normally, that penalty should be a termination of their relationship with the virtual assistant or outsourcing provider company.

One last ugly point to mention: If you ever find out that a customer’s or client’s information has been divulged to someone who should not have it, you owe it to that person to tell them immediately. Imagine if it were you, I am sure you will want to know as soon as it happens (I know I will!). Do it so that they can then take the necessary measures to minimize any damages. You owe them that much!

Questions for you:

• Who should suffer the consequences if a virtual assistant compromises customer information: the business or the VA?
• Why does it seem businesses are so careless with customer information?

Visitors who read this post also read:

• Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners – part 3
• Trust is a Two-Way Street; Why you need trust to work successfully with Virtual Assistants
• 7 Tips on How to Mind Map your Business Ideas and Create Systems

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