94% of global businesses have acknowledged they have a privacy skills gap, according to research by ISACA. 

The research found that, despite the agreed importance of privacy and the growing concern over security, 59% of technical privacy teams are understaffed. 

ISACA’s “Privacy in Practice” report explores the state of enterprise privacy by examining trends around privacy teams, privacy-related challenges, privacy by design, and the future of privacy. 

Businesses appear to be aware of the significance of privacy, with 87% of organisations surveyed offering privacy awareness training to employees. 

Despite this, nearly half (49%) of respondents found there to be a lack of privacy training or poor training. 

59% of businesses say that technical privacy roles are understaffed, with 64% also saying that there will be an increased demand for these roles in the coming year. 

Chris Dimitriadis, Global Chief Strategy Officer, ISACA says: “Privacy professionals play a key role in establishing digital trust. As technology advances, introducing new complexities and threats and as the cyberthreat landscape increases in size and sophistication, demand for these individuals is only going to grow. 

“Heightened privacy skills demand is good news for candidates with privacy technology knowledge but also bad news for businesses that are struggling to close the privacy skills gap.”

Businesses are also not funding their own programs, with only 41% of respondents saying their privacy budget is appropriately funded. 

Further, less than a third (28%) of employees find it easy to understand their organisation’s privacy obligations, meaning internal and external data is more likely at risk. 

With a lack of proper training already a top reason companies believe their privacy infrastructure failed, not practising privacy by design on their products and services (39%) and data breaches (38%) were also among the top failures of privacy programs. 

As companies continue to struggle filling in their teams with qualified privacy specialists, their faith in their current capabilities is low. 

Only 43% of respondents are highly confident in their privacy team’s ability to ensure data privacy and achieve compliance with new privacy laws and regulations. 

Both of these aspects appear to be of increasing importance. 

Consumers surveyed in 2022 were found to be more concerned about companies’ privacy policies and previous data breaches, according to Softwareadvice’s Privacy-Focused Consumers Survey. 

Further, data protection regulators are continually cracking down on privacy policies to protect consumer data, and those found in breach of putting in proper privacy measures may face hefty fines. 

“As our new research highlights, businesses need to consider changing their training programmes and adopt privacy by design to limit the number of privacy breaches, build digital trust, and set the business up for long term success,” Dimitriadis continued. 

Indeed, fixing privacy issues by hiring new staff may not be entirely possible, as the cybersecurity workforce gap widened by 24% in 2022. 

The technical skills gap in Scotland and the UK as a whole has forced businesses to consider upskilling their own staff in an ever-more digitised world, and businesses concerned over privacy will likely have to do the same. 

Tony Hughes, ISACA Emerging Trends Working Group Member, said: “Only searching for candidates with specific experience and technical privacy skills is an outdated mindset – it immediately limits businesses to a small pool of people. 

“Instead, organisations need to lean on reskilling people in non-privacy roles, using contract employees and focusing on individuals with the right soft skills to reduce the privacy skills gap.”

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The report found that already, 45% of businesses are training to allow non-privacy staff to move into privacy roles, and 39% are increasing the use of contract employees or outside consultants to improve their privacy infrastructure. 

Companies have found this training to improve their privacy outlook, with 69% saying it had a positive impact on privacy awareness. 

Overall, to combat the skills shortage, companies will need to implement privacy by design into their training, products and services – these policies increase confidence in privacy teams and to achieve compliance with new privacy regulations and ensure the privacy of sensitive data.

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