By Judith Ratcliffe

Judith Ratcliffe has been championing individuals’ rights and helping organisations and government departments get privacy and data protection compliant for over a decade.

Judith has also worked in financial crime prevention.

Judith features in Book Brilliance Publishing’s anthology, Voices of Women.

Being a Leader is about challenging assumptions and making people think:

Let me tell you a story – Spouses died and there appeared to be no reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed, or medical negligence/ malpractice, and yet people had to accept spouses being autopsied and had to attend coroners’ courts hearings, to be allowed to lay their loved ones to rest.

If Privacy Rights were respected and informed consent sought for all autopsies where there is no reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed, and/ or medical negligence/ malpractice, it is arguable that people wouldn’t have to go through that.

Failures to respect the rules around fully informed consent caused the Alder Hey and Bristol Hospital scandals, where it seems children’s organs were taken and retained without the knowledge or consent of their parents, causing harm to the bereaved and retraumatising the traumatised.

Respecting Privacy First would, arguably, have better respected the dead and saved people from harm, preserved Public Trust and hospitals’ reputations.

Privacy Rights Protect People.

Being a Leader is also about showing businesses why Privacy Makes Sense:

Respecting Privacy Rights is Great for the Economy and Saves Businesses Money:

Non-smart gadgetry may prevent trade secrets and product designs from being stolen. Giving people a fully enforceable Right to be OFFline may prevent a lot of fraud and financial crime. Good customer services are underpinned by respecting people’s rights, too – reducing complaints volumes, types and escalations, saving costs. It (arguably) saves money to keep things in-house and say goodbye to outsourced providers that cause non-compliance and/or demand unwarranted costs to make systems and processes compliant, when organisations have already paid for a ‘compliant’ service. Retaining minimal amounts of personal data for the minimum period of time, actioning erasure requests promptly when requested and refusing to collect unneeded data, reduces storage and security costs.

Privacy built-in to project management and projects from the design phase arguably prevents costly re-work, increases team morale and improves business cases, arguably making the overall product more likely to be successful.

Showing Teams how to protect their Rights and teaching them that they must protect other people’s, teaches them to respect themselves and also shows that organisations respect them, which builds trust.

Privacy is a cornerstone for long-term business success because (it seems we are regularly told) people buy more and buy more regularly from organisations they know they can Trust.