IBM has recently formed the Privacy Management Council in an initiative to promote secure data management and protect consumer information. IBM’s vice president for Security Products, Tivoli Software, Dr Arvind Krishna, spoke to Srikanth R P on the need for such a Council

What was the need for forming a Privacy Management Council?
We are of the firm view that privacy and security are complementary to each other. For instance, consumers today are wary about giving their real identification details on the Net because they fear that companies would use the information obtained to get aggressive in their sales pitches. The result is that the next time a user goes to a site, he/she gives dummy names and addresses. The only solution to this problem is that we have to have a more responsible market place where companies respect the privacy of the individual. While most companies today have a privacy policy in place, they rarely implement them. This is not because of the lack of mindset to do so, but because privacy in its very nature is difficult to implement. The IBM Privacy Management Council will ensure that a corporation delivers solutions that customers want with the help of technology.

What will be the key focus areas for this Council?
The key focus areas of the Council would be to educate and help organisations to fulfil their needs. Though companies have privacy policies in place, there is no way of verifying if a privacy policy is implemented completely. This is the key reason why customers don’t like to divulge their real identities on the Web. On the other side, the merchant too suffers as he has little chance of knowing who the real customer is. Privacy is complementary to security and online merchants have to begin with a more responsible market place for customers to shop. This is where the Privacy Management Council will draw in knowledge from experts in key industries such as finance, healthcare, government and travel and offer inputs to IBM for building future versions of IBM’s Tivoli privacy management software.

How has the industry reacted to the Council?
We have seen an extremely positive response from sectors like financial institutions, healthcare and the government. Though organisations had the will to implement their privacy policies to their fullest, they were held back by the lack of effective technology. But today with Tivoli privacy management software, organisations have the capability to implement their privacy policies easily. Additionally, the fact that reputed names like Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, Fidelity Investments, Marriott International, Novant Health and the US Dept of Commerce have chosen to be a part of this Council shows the importance of privacy in today’s context. This is a very positive sign as our partners represent key verticals and we hope each player will spur on other players as well.

How will the Tivoli Privacy Wizard help organisations implement their privacy policies?
While most organisations have privacy policies in place, creating this policy is only the first step. For the privacy policy to be useful, it must be translated into an electronic language that can be applied across a company’s IT infrastructure. This is where most organisations find it difficult to translate a human language policy to an electronic format which applications can access and derive value from. This is where the Tivoli privacy wizard can help automate a company’s privacy policy. The wizard has the ability to take a company’s primary privacy policy and translate it into electronically expressed privacy rules that can be understood by enterprise privacy monitoring and enforcement software, like the World Wide Web Consortium’s Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P).

Companies can import existing privacy policies or use the tool’s graphical user interface to create or redefine privacy policies. Also inbuilt, is an access control system which defines who can use what data and for what purpose. This helps in regulating the flow of data to different organisations. To educate our customers about the solution, the Tivoli Privacy Wizard is currently available at no charge and can be downloaded for free.