An Information Protection Tool that Engages Employees

A municipality and a funeral home address information protection.

Harold Townley is a Funeral Director and business owner. He also sits on the board of the town of Ballston, one of the first organizations to implement the Information Protection Toolkit (IPT). The town employees - including Harold - worked through IPT earlier this year. The result was better protected information for the town and a new awareness about information protection in Harold's business.

Like all municipalities, Ballston holds information that should not be in the public domain. While there had not been a security problem to date, given that there was no plan in place to protect this information, it was definitely a possibility. They needed IPT.

In Week One, Michael Santarcangelo worked with a team of employees to identify what information was held in the organization, where it was held and how it was managed. The next four steps of IPT involve processing what is learned, analyzing the results, developing an action plan and finally, communicating the plan. It was after only the first few steps that change was noticed. Involving all employees in IPT "created an immediate shift in the mindset of town employees regarding information security" says Harold.

But for Harold, the change was extended further. He discovered that he wasn't only thinking differently about information protection for the city - but for his business as well. At a meeting of funeral directors he encouraged participants to consider how they handle the personal data of deceased people. He wants his profession to consider carefully what is published in newspapers, how data is kept in the business and how requests for information are handled.

Harold doesn't know that identity theft has occurred as a result of information provided by funeral homes but it is possible and he doesn't want to be the source of such a problem. "Just because we've done things one way in the past doesn't mean we have to continue doing it that way," he says. Thanks to IPT, Harold looks at the information held by his funeral home differently. And the town of Ballston is well on its way to a proactive plan that engages all employees in information protection.