FTC Safeguards Rule Checklist

The Cleartech Group, located in Leominster, MA, wants to help you manage modern data compliance regulations. In our digital-first world, cybersecurity is more than a buzzword used by tech companies and giant corporations. Data protection has been a concern since before the creation of the internet, but modern applications are built on millions of bytes designed for a single individual, making protecting consumer information a critical concern for governments. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Safeguards rule, introduced in 2003, was updated on June 9th, 2023 to account for new digital threats.

To this end, we have created a FTC Safeguards Rule checklist, to help you meet these new requirements and understand how they protect your business and your customers. Here are the new FTC Safeguards Rules for 2023:

• Designate a “qualified individual” to lead your cybersecurity program
• Risk assessment
• Design and implement safeguards
• Incident response plan
• Oversight of service providers
• Employee training and management
• Ongoing evaluation and adjustments

These FTC Safeguards Rule checklists apply to a number of organizations responsible for protecting consumer data. The Safeguards Rule “requires covered companies to develop, implement, and maintain an information security program with administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect customer information.” To simplify this, our FTC Safeguards Rule Checklist guides businesses through a step-by-step process to verify their compliance with current and future regulations.

This might seem like a complex process with a massive list of checkboxes, but we have created a simplified guide to help you understand our FTC Safeguards Rule checklist here. This checklist covers each of the bullet points above and how best to handle each one for your business needs.

Regardless of the size of the business, the regulations are the same, and our FTC Safeguards Rules checklist, covers the recent changes in 2023 on risk assessment, implementation of data protection measures, and incident response planning. Developing a comprehensive security program to account for each item on the checklist can be incredibly challenging, so we work closely with your Leominster, MA business to create a security program tailored to your unique size and organization complexity. If you need hands-on insight from experienced IT professionals, be sure to contact the Cleartech Group.