Business & Finance Business Information

What Is Red Flag Compliance?

Ever since Identity Theft became a focus that has pretty much been on everyone's minds, numerous laws have been passed to combat this crime.
ID theft has become a full-Spectrum crime as it can be perpetrated using simple techniques such as 'Dumpster Diving' to complicated computer viruses and Cyber-Attacks.
Statistically, over 52% of all identity theft comes from the workplace, so in order to fight this, several laws have been passed that are specifically geared toward businesses.
The Red Flag Compliance came about through FACTA, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act.
And what it does is that it puts the responsibility of the protection of Personal Identifiable Information, or PII, on the business owners.
All businesses, small and large, from one employee to thousands, are responsible for the protection of client and employee's personal information.
And as daunting as a task this may sound, it is relatively easy to implement a Red Flag Compliance policy into your businesses work procedures.
Now there are several Identity Theft laws on the books but they all pretty much point in the same direction.
The first thing that you need to have is a security policy in place that addresses your security concerns for your business.
This component of the Red Flag Compliance process cannot be a 'Cookie Cutter' policy that you download off the internet.
This guiding principle has to be custom-crafted so that it concentrates on any security flaw that may be exploited by an Identity thief.
The second course of action to Red Flag Compliance is the appointment of a security officer.
Now you do not have to go out and hire someone for this position as it can be appointed to someone within company.
Their job is to oversee the security policy and make sure that the guidelines set-forth by the policy are followed.
They also oversee any revisions or updates to the policy that affect the company and that all employees are notified of those updates.
The Red Flag Compliance standard also includes a training session for the employees of no less that 30 minutes.
The training that I conduct for companies includes explaining the security policy of your company, identity theft tactics, fines and ways to protect themselves from ID Theft.
Also included is a confidentiality agreement between the company and the employees that they understand what the policy says and agree to the company's position on the Red Flag Compliance standards.
To the business owner, not only does this course of action protect the employees and their jobs, it also elevates the company's morale knowing that they (the employees) have a part in the success and longevity of their employer and it shows that the employer cares for its workers.
I know you might be thinking that this Red Flag Compliance is expensive to implement.
This is truly not the case.
Having this compliance in place does more to your bottom line than it is NOT to have.
It also greatly reduces your exposure to the fines that are associated with having an information breach coming from your company.
For more information go to my website http://www.
freefromidtheft.
com

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