Outsourcing is hiring an outside company to handle all or part of an
organization’s data processing activities. (Romney, Steinbart,
Summers, & Wood, 2020)Outsourcing various information system
functions poses risks to satisfying the principles of confidentiality and
privacy because the U.S.A. has imposed specific requirements on
organizations to protect the privacy of their customer’s personal
information (Romney, Steinbart, Summers, & Wood, 2020) and the
outsourcing locations may not have any mechanisms in place to
protect and safeguard customers personal information, in which the
company will still be accountable if the outsource location gets
breached and it loses control of the data. The U.S has different
federal regulations that protect customers’ personal information, for
example:
1. California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
2. Health insurance portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
3. Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical
Health Act (HITECH)
4. Financial Services Modernization Act (also referred to as
Gramm-Leach-Bailey Act)
Data security and data protection are the top risks of outsourcing. I
believe that if companies ask for personal data, they should be able to
protect that information from being stolen or have systems and
procedures in place to prevent it from being stolen. It is important for
companies to properly train their employees because it is the most
important control in protecting confidentiality and privacy (Romney,
Steinbart, Summers, & Wood, 2020). Employees should be taught
how to protect sensitive data. (Romney, Steinbart, Summers, &
Wood, 2020) I also believe that we are also responsible to protect our
private information. Just yesterday my husband was telling me about
email passwords that were leaked, so it is important that we use
stronger passwords, the most hacked passwords include people’s
names.
Bibliography
Romney, M. B., Steinbart, P. J., Summers, S. L., & Wood, D. A. (2020).
Accounting Information Systems. Pearson.
