Gartner Includes WireWheel in Three Hype Cycles for 2020

What’s the right time to invest in privacy technology? Wait too long and you’ll struggle to manage the growing volume of consumer requests and emerging privacy laws. Meanwhile, companies able to adapt nimbly to changing privacy requirements will increase consumer trust and operate more efficiently.

Gartner’s Hype Cycles help you build a shortlist of privacy technologies to strengthen your privacy operations and build a competitive advantage. WireWheel is honored to be included in three of Gartner’s 2020 Hype Cycles: Hype Cycle for Privacy, Hype Cycle for Security, and Hype Cycle for Legal and Compliance Technologies. Companies using WireWheel are among the most privacy-conscious organizations in the world, committed to ethical data stewardship using the latest privacy technologies.

Why All the Hype for Privacy Technology?

The complexity of privacy operations is accelerating exponentially. 2020 began with the California Consumer Privacy Act, which gives consumers the right to request access and deletion of their data. Nevada and Maine have passed similar laws, and 23 other states are actively considering data privacy laws. Singapore, Brazil, India, and many other countries are developing their own privacy legislation.

As Gartner states:

“Privacy as a fundamental human right continues to be enshrined through regulatory changes worldwide. Where regulations do not yet exist, customers are actively choosing to engage with organizations that respect privacy. Laws inform strategy and policy, carefully applied technology enables purposeful processing, and risk management balances innovation with compliance. Privacy protection demands the deliberate control of personal data throughout its life cycle.”

Gartner predicts the mainstream adoption of the tools in all three Hype Cycles within the next five years. Companies that adopt technologies to streamline Data Subject Access Requests are expected to experience “transformational” results, according to Gartner. They’ll lower costs to process data requests, gain greater insights into their customers, and become known as privacy leaders.

COVID-19 Has Raised Privacy Issues

COVID-19 has brought data privacy issues to the forefront. Organizations want to protect the health of their employees and customers, which often means collecting personal data through contact tracing and other novel approaches.

As Gartner explains in the Hype Cycle for Legal and Compliance Technologies:

“COVID-19 has accelerated the push toward digital business transformation for most businesses. In response, CEOs are driving demand from the top, eyeing new or altered business models that increase efficiencies, cut costs, and support digitalization efforts.”

Companies need to consider how personal health and location data is stored and protected, as Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Data Security warns:

“Organizations face huge challenges recovering from the impacts of the 2020 global crisis, new work-from-home strategies, and the faster adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud services. A data security strategy must address increasing risks associated with data residency, privacy, and malicious activities.”

Privacy management tools, such as WireWheel, help companies confirm what personal data is collected, where it is stored, and how it is used. They ensure employees and consumers have opted-in to the collection of their data and understand how it will be used. Automated systems for data discovery and classification help keep data organized and protected.

Why Is Privacy Part of Three Hype Cycles?

Privacy technologies are included in multiple Hype Cycles because multiple functions and decision-makers within an organization share responsibility for data privacy.

As Gartner notes:

“Cutting across various disciplines, privacy is much more than a security or technology discipline; SRM [security and risk management] leaders must maintain a working relationship with all business units to actively promote coordinated action toward compliance. This enables them to understand the relevance of tools to context and ensure that the right tool is in the right place.”

Among WireWheel customers, privacy is a team sport. Compliance, legal, product, IT operations, data governance, and marketing can work together in a common hub to keep data private. They each view data from a different perspective and using WireWheel can create a common understanding of how it is collected, managed, sold, and protected.

Why Is Privacy Part of Three Hype Cycles?

Hype Cycles show a glimpse of the future and give you the opportunity to adopt cutting-edge approaches before everyone else does. Having a first-mover advantage is great, but only if you select a technology that adapts as your needs change.

It’s a safe bet that new privacy laws will change requirements for legal language, consumer request timelines, auditing, and data management practices. In addition, your organization will likely add new databases and applications that store personal data and possibly launch products and practices that manage data in different ways. To match your changing environment, you’ll need flexible privacy technologies you can customize easily and integrate with other tools.

Thank you Gartner for including WireWheel in the 2020 Hype Cycles. We are honored to be included and look forward to helping companies accelerate privacy compliance, streamline privacy operations, and build a competitive advantage that’s sustainable for the future.

Disclaimer

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.