Press Releases
Freevacy launches £20,000 Scholarship Fund in a Bid to Combat Dangerous Privacy Skills Shortage
LONDON UK, 25th January 2023 – To celebrate International Data Protection Day this Saturday (28th Jan), information rights training provider, Freevacy, is launching the first-of-its-kind scholarship fund. The fund, which will see over £20,000 worth of training awarded to successful candidates, is designed to entice new entrants to the field which is experiencing a dramatic privacy skills shortage.
Qualifying in this field is valuable for anyone involved in the acquisition, use and protection of personal information across all industries. An ISACA report published earlier this month highlighted that 94% of businesses acknowledge a privacy skills gap. Lack or insufficient training accounted for the most reported privacy incidents, 49%, with personal data breaches at 38% and failing to follow privacy by design principles at 39%.
Without more skilled professionals, businesses are increasingly in danger of being unable to adequately protect personal data, with customer relationships and organisational reputations on the line.
Freevacy’s Joyce Allen Privacy Champion BCS Scholarship scheme will pay for twenty course applicants to study for their Foundation Certificate in Data Protection from the professional body, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. At the end of the course, which normally costs £1095, trainees will hold a recognised industry qualification which could one day lead to a full-time career in privacy.
Freevacy advocates a ‘privacy champion’ approach and believes embedding privacy champions within businesses will relieve the pressure on core privacy teams. The privacy champion approach involves cross-training existing employees in data protection, allowing them to take on additional privacy responsibilities without leaving their roles.
While privacy teams are getting larger, organisations are facing increasing challenges to identify, recruit and retain the experienced and qualified data protection practitioners needed to meet today’s evolving privacy demands in order to deliver on compliance.
Adequately resourced privacy teams support the development of a mature privacy programme. In turn, this enables organisations to experience fewer data breaches and avoid reputational damage while at the same time limiting regulatory oversight and monetary penalties. Furthermore, it allows businesses to use data more broadly, creating a competitive advantage and building consumer and stakeholder trust.
The advantages of operating a decentralised privacy management structure are twofold.
Privacy champions, who promote the privacy programme from within their team or department, are better placed to support business owners in meeting data protection responsibilities within the scope of their operations. This additional capacity within the business relieves pressure on compliance teams allowing them to focus on systematic and consistent improvements in privacy programme maturity.
Developing a network of privacy champions creates a pool of multi-skilled professionals who, with additional training and development, could make suitable candidates for full-time privacy roles as and when they become available.
Having played a role in the professionalisation of the industry for almost 20 years, Freevacy founder Joyce Allen said: “A new generation of DPOs will start out as privacy champions. Right now, we have an opportunity to reallocate privacy responsibilities into the business functions working with data. There are clear areas of overlap where training staff in data protection can lead to productivity gains, efficiencies and enhanced compliance. Privacy champions play a pivotal role in developing organisational culture and ensuring initiatives such as privacy by design, data minimisation, and DPIAs are deep-rooted.”
Having completed her BCS training with Freevacy, recent trainee Ms Arathoon said: “I decided to enrol on the Foundation in Data Protection certificate due to finding myself at a career crossroads. As a complete novice to GDPR, I was very apprehensive about joining the course. My concerns were soon diminished, the online training was relaxed, and the trainer explained the content in plain English, using everyday examples to put into context and invited an open forum to ask questions that needed further discussion. I never realised data protection could be so interesting and so integral to the service and administrative areas in the industry where I work. The additional reading resources and advice were invaluable when it came to the exam of which I was delighted to pass!”
To be in with a chance of winning the Joyce Allen Privacy Champion BCS Scholarship, email [email protected] with details of the recipient’s name, title and department. Include a short description of why privacy is essential to your role. In addition, applications should provide the telephone numbers, and email addresses of the head of the department and the data protection lead sponsoring the application.
Applicants must be sponsored by both their department head, and data protection lead to enter. The employer must also provide a commitment not to transfer the recipient into a dedicated compliance role for a minimum of 12 months after completion of the scholarship programme. This allows sufficient time to embed new working practices and measure performance.
The closing date for applications is 31 August 2023. Freevacy will develop a shortlist and award recipients throughout the year up to this date.