Is your data really safe?

Gaining ISO27001 certification isn’t easy, and it requires hard work and dedication from an entire organisation. This blog details why we did it, and why it’s important to our clients

Security of personal and private data is one of the primary concerns of our time. Ever since 25th May 2018, when the introduction of the new Data Protection Act legally required companies to take a higher level of responsibility for the data they store, organisations have been scrambling to safeguard information collected on a daily basis. 

One of the best ways of demonstrating your commitment to data protection is by developing an Information Security Management System (ISMS) which has ISO27001 certification – an independent standard which details the best practice policies and procedures for keeping an organisation’s IT and data assets secure. 

As an indicator of just how popular the information security standard is, ISO27001 certifications have grown by more than 450% in the last decade alone.

Security of data is at the heart of what we do at Trinity McQueen, and we wanted an internationally recognised certification to show that. As anyone who has been through it before will know, getting ISO27001 verified is a long and difficult process. So, why did we go to all the trouble of putting ourselves through it, and just what does it mean to our clients?

Why do it?

I’m a big believer in a glass-half-full philosophy, which means, when we looked around Trinity McQueen in early 2017 on the back of another successful year, I saw an opportunity – an opportunity to distinguish ourselves as a company that puts data protection at the forefront of everything we do.

As a well-respected confirmation of an organisation’s ability to ensure the security of their data, the process of acquiring ISO27001 certification unifies a company’s security processes within a highly efficient ISMS. Such a structured system greatly lowers the risks of any data breaches and reduces the cost of performing routine security reviews in the long run.

With the misuse of data incurring heavier legal ramifications in recent years, businesses and brands are coming to demand a higher level of data security from everyone they work with. Here at Trinity McQueen we thought, rather than dismissing these demands as unrealistic, we would implement a security system that could meet them head-on.

The benefits of ISO27001

After going through numerous audits, training all our employees on maintaining high-security standards and improving the efficiency of our security model at every stage of the process, Trinity McQueen achieved ISO27001 compliance back in 2018. As a result, we’ve been able to identify issues that could potentially put our company and clients at risk before they’ve even arrived, and we have kickstarted the processes and procedures which will proactively prevent future problems from occurring. As such, the data of the people and communities we analyse, as well as the interests of our clients, are under the highest level of security at all times.

Such a level of protection is paramount at a company like Trinity McQueen. With our innovative focus on behavioural science and technology, we collect data to an almost microscopic degree. We know what people are going to do next before they know themselves – and in the wrong hands, that’s a dangerous amount of power. For that reason, we wouldn’t be able to hold ourselves morally accountable if we knew there was even a slight chance that the security of our data wasn’t airtight.

Safer with Trinity McQueen

With obvious benefits, both in terms of data protection and secure environments, I find it disappointing that many agencies haven’t already made ISO27001 compliance their top priority. The ethos of accountability and responsibility we’ve embedded into every channel of our ISMS is an ethos you won’t find amongst some of our competitors, who often overlook the importance of safeguarding their clients’ data.

That’s why we know that client data is safer with Trinity McQueen than it is with some of our competitors. We see ISO27001 almost like an insurance policy. Clients should demand it upfront and accept no false promises or ambiguity on the other end. The bottom line: if an agency doesn’t have the certification, then you should think twice about working with them. The risk of corporate reputational damage from data breaches is growing.

Securing your data well into the future

Once we achieved the standard, we knew we had to keep up the hard work. There’s no point going to the effort of integrating a fully-functioning and ISO27001-accredited ISMS if you aren’t going to practice what you preach on a daily basis. At Trinity McQueen, we treat every day as if it was our final audit. Perhaps that sounds slightly grandiose and over-zealous, but the truth is, we’re passionate about data security from start to finish – from the moment we begin to collect it to the moment we need to archive it securely. And we have exactly the same levels of pride and focus when it comes to every aspect of what we do.

That’s what sets Trinity McQueen apart. We wear our ISO27001 certification with pride, and we see it as a visible indicator to all existing and future clients that we take our security seriously, and that we will keep the information we collect for you unquestionably safe.