The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) provides valuable guidance to help professionals navigate the complexities of data protection, ensuring compliance while maintaining best practices in client relationships. With businesses increasingly relying on digital tools and cloud storage, taking proactive steps to prevent breaches, cyber threats, and data mishandling is more important than ever.
RICS’ guidance offers clear, practical advice to help surveyors understand their responsibilities and implement robust security measures to protect both client and business information.
Key Areas Covered by RICS:
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Data Breach Prevention: Identifying and documenting risks to all types of data, including employee mistakes, equipment failure, hacking, cyber-attacks, malware, and loss of equipment.
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Employee Training: Ensuring staff are trained to keep data secure, focusing on topics such as reporting data breaches, transferring data securely, working securely from home, complying with data protection policies, avoiding cyber-attacks, managing information on social media, and setting up proper passwords.
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Supplier and Cloud Storage Management: Conducting due diligence on suppliers to ensure they handle information securely, including appropriate contractual clauses. Understanding the physical jurisdiction where information is held or hosted, especially when using cloud storage, and ensuring compliance with relevant agreements regarding transferring personal information between countries.
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Data Retention Policies: Keeping data only as long as necessary, guided by a retention policy that sets out durations for different types of data. This includes understanding legal time limits for retaining information to respond to potential claims.
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Personal Data Protection: Complying with data-protection legislation on collecting, using, storing, and sharing personal information. Recognising that some types of personal data are particularly sensitive and may require additional protection under data-protection laws.
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Privacy Notices: Providing clear information to individuals about how their data will be used, stored, and shared, ensuring transparency and compliance with data-protection principles.
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Enhancing Security with Technology
RICS’ guidance on data security underscores the importance of protecting sensitive client information, preventing breaches, and ensuring compliance with legal obligations. From employee training and supplier management to data retention policies and privacy notices, surveyors must take proactive steps to safeguard their business and client data.
Staying informed about data security best practices is essential—not just for compliance but also to protect reputation and prevent costly breaches. Secure systems and policies help reduce risks, improve efficiency, and strengthen client trust.
Integrating secure data management solutions into daily operations is key.
CRMs like Survey Booker provide robust cloud-based systems, encrypted data handling, and controlled access permissions, ensuring sensitive client information remains protected. Combined with cyber security tools, regular updates, and insights from guides like RICS’ standards, surveyors can stay ahead of emerging threats.
By using trusted CRMs and security tools, surveyors can proactively mitigate risks and prevent cyberattacks before they happen. Investing in secure technology today means safeguarding your business for the future.