Half of Privacy Pros in India Say Privacy Budgets Currently Appropriately Funded, but a Third Expecting Those Budgets to Decrease This Year
From India’s Personal Data Protection Bill to Brazil’s General Data Protection Law, the past year saw new developments and updates to privacy regulations across the globe. According to ISACA’s Privacy in Practice 2024 survey report, half (51 percent) of the India-based respondents say their organizations find it easy to understand their privacy obligations and a majority (62 percent) are very or completely confident in their organization’s privacy team’s ability to ensure data privacy and achieve compliance with new privacy laws and regulations.
More than 1,300 professionals globally, including 71 from India, who work in data privacy roles responded to the survey, weighing in on privacy topics such as staffing, organization structure, policies, budgets and training.
Privacy Challenges
In addition to finding it easy to understand the privacy regulatory landscape, organizations in India also feel that the budget is currently mostly appropriate. More than half of respondents (51 percent) say their privacy budget is appropriately funded and only 23 percent say their budget is somewhat or significantly underfunded. When looking at the year ahead, 42 percent say that they expect their budget will increase (down 20 points from last year), and only 1 percent say it will remain the same (down 8 points from last year). However, a third of respondents (32 percent) expect a decrease in budget, which is higher than last year, when only 6 percent expected a decrease in budget.
The path to forming a privacy program is not always a smooth one, either, with Indian respondents indicating that the top obstacles include:
- Lack of competent resources (44 percent)
- Complex international legal and regulatory landscape (35 percent)
- Management of risks associated with new technologies (35 percent)
- Lack of clarity on the mandate, roles, and responsibilities (34 percent)
In seeking those competent resources, technical privacy positions are in highest demand, with 75 percent of Indian respondents indicating there will be increased demand for technical privacy roles in the next year. Legal/compliance roles come a close second with 73 percent feeling that there will be increased demand. However, respondents indicate there are skills gaps among these privacy professionals; they cite experience with different types of technologies and/or applications (58 percent) as the biggest one.
When looking at common privacy failures, respondents in India pinpointed the non-compliance with applicable laws and regulations (44 percent), data breach/leakage (42 percent) and not practicing privacy by design (41 percent) as the main concerns.
