“Privacy budgets expected to decrease in 2024” suggests ISACA research

Anticipated decreases in privacy budgets come despite half (53%) of organisations reporting that their technical privacy teams are understaffed. In parallel, 41% of those businesses surveyed also state that they experience difficulties when it comes to retaining qualified privacy professionals.

Chris Dimitriadis, global chief strategy officer at ISACA, observed: “Reducing privacy budgets would be deemed normal if privacy operations were considered mature and mainstream. However, this isn’t the case. Our research highlights the fact that a combination of reduced investments and the lack of available skills for tackling what is now an increasingly sophisticated cyber threat landscape is a recipe for disaster. It’s also proof-positive that more holistic training at the Board and privacy leader level needs to take place for both understanding and then communicating the need.” 

In order to combat some of the challenges they’re facing, organisations have been diligent about providing training to employees. On that note, 68% of privacy professionals state that their company offers privacy training on an annual basis, while 58% offer training when new hires are made. 71% of respondents suggest that privacy training and awareness programmes have exerted a positive impact on wider employee privacy awareness.

However, there’s still a long way to go for businesses, as only 10% of respondents feel completely confident in their privacy team’s ability to ensure data privacy and achieve compliance with new privacy laws and regulations.

Skills gap

It’s clear that a skills gap still prevails for core privacy staff. Experience with different types of technologies or applications (according to 65% of respondents), technical expertise (50%) and IT operations knowledge (42%) are the biggest skills gaps privacy professionals are facing within their teams.

Reassuringly, organisations are taking steps to reduce that skills gap, with 52% offering training to allow non-privacy staff to move into privacy roles, while 39% are increasing the usage of contractors or external consultants.

Safia Kazi, principal for privacy professional practices at ISACA, explained: “Organisations clearly crave expertise when it comes to managing privacy compliance and issues. This starts with putting the right resources towards privacy training and affording prioritisation. Only then can they protect their data, build trust with consumers and preserve supplier relationships. Ultimately, better privacy benefits us all.”

All of the figures quoted are based on fieldwork conducted by ISACA between 13 and 31 October last year among a total of 305 privacy professionals based in Europe. In total, ISACA surveyed more than 1,300 privacy professionals worldwide.

*For more information, read ISACA’s detailed report entitled ‘Privacy in Practice 2024’ online here 

About ISACA

ISACA (www.isaca.org) has existed for over five decades now to equip individuals and enterprises alike with the knowledge, credentials, education, training and community necessary to progress their careers, transform their organisations and build a more trusted and ethical digital world.

It’s a global professional association and learning organisation that leverages the expertise of its 170,000 members who work in digital trust fields such as information security, governance, assurance, risk, privacy and quality.

ISACA boasts a presence in 188 countries, including 225 chapters worldwide. The organisation’s member base in Europe exceeds 30,000, with a regional office having been established in Dublin in 2022.

Through its foundation ‘One In Tech’, ISACA supports IT education and career pathways for under-resourced and underrepresented populations.