Responsible personal data elaboration in the private sector in Albania

On March 31^st ASDO held the fourth-round table, titled: “Responsible personal data elaboration in the private sector in Albania”.

The meeting brought together Real Estate Industry actors, Ms. Blerta Xhako Director of the Directorate of Legal Affairs and Integration at the office of the Commissioner for the Right of Information and the Personal Data Protection, Mr. Emirjon Marku National Expert on data protection and Mr. Reinaldo Pipiria Executive Director at NAREA.

This round table was organized in continuation of our work done to improve the information on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection in our country. The project “Awareness on cyber security and protection of personal data” is supported by the Swiss Embassy in Albania.

The real estate industry deals with massive volumes of sensitive personal data and financial information. As a result, we’ve seen the sector turning increasingly to digital tools to help ease their work processes. However, these agile digital tools introduce new challenges and risks. When storing sensitive real estate data sets in digital tools, these firms must ensure that these pieces of personal information do not get lost or compromised through accidental deletion, unauthorized access, or cyber-attacks. Such events could cause severe negative impacts to any real estate business – financial losses, lawsuits, and reputational damage.

This round-table provided the opportunity to discuss how private sector will enhance the cyber security processes, policies and procedures and what are the basis of building a strong security culture within their companies.

The meeting started with an opening statement of Ms. Ada Ilia from Albania Sustainable Development Organization. Later on the meeting proceeded with a presentation from Ms. Blerta Xhako on the role of the IDP office and the right of Information and the Personal Data Protection. After her presentation it was Mr. Emirjon Marku that discussed alongside the participants on data protection, risks and security, legal and operating procedures elements for the private sector community, best practices, new technologies or methods for data collection that could better shield consumers from exploitative practices. At the end he provided with suggestions on how to appoint chief privacy officers and empowering them with the ability to create new, more stringent privacy practices in order to remain compliant with Data Protection law in Albania.

The round table ended with a question and answers session focused on the collaboration with state institutions such as the Information and Data Protection Commissioner, on the role that compliance teams have in keeping up with the amendments of the Data Protection law in Albania as well as asking for deep trainings and best practice experience when dealing with possible data breaches and safeguarding of personal data of their clients.

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not reflect the opinions or views of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)