Many companies and government agencies have already sent employees home to work remotely in response to concerns about the coronavirus.  This week, thousands of additional employers will likely follow suit until concerns about the contagion ease.  The International Association of IT Asset Managers (IAITAM) is warning that most employers may have rushed into making their decision without thinking through how to secure their most sensitive data.

Organizations are in a race to understand their risk from regulations for the protection and use of personal data, which are on the rise worldwide. With the GDPR in Europe, the CCPA in California, KVKK in Turkey, and several other regulatory actions being enacted around the world, corporations now face serious fiscal consequences and reputational damage that might follow a potential data breach.

In most organisations, the records management team and the information security teams are separated, primarily because information security is seen as a technology function, and records management is not. But good records management requires effective security management, and good cybersecurity practice relies on appropriate recordkeeping. By considering the ways in which these two domains intersect, we can make the case for closer collaboration, if not connection, between these roles.