As the founder of TeachPrivacy and a longtime privacy law professor, I’ve seen how crucial regular privacy training is for organizations. But how often should employees actually receive this training?
The Baseline: Annual Training
At a minimum, employees should receive comprehensive privacy training once a year. This annual course ensures everyone stays up-to-date with evolving privacy laws, regulations, and best practices.
But annual privacy training alone isn’t enough. Privacy threats and regulations change rapidly, and a once-a-year approach leaves significant gaps. People learn best when they are trained in short sessions over time, and especially at the time they are facing relevant issues.
Beyond Annual: A Layered Approach
Here’s what I recommend for a more robust privacy training program:
New Hire Onboarding
Every new employee should receive privacy training within their first week on the job. No exceptions. This sets the foundation for a privacy-aware culture from day one.
Quarterly Updates
I suggest brief, focused training sessions at least every quarter. These can cover new developments, reinforce key concepts, or address emerging threats. This training need not be long – it can be as short as 5 minutes. It can focus on a specific topic.
Ad-hoc Training
Whenever there’s a significant change in privacy laws or company policies, or after an incident, roll out targeted training ASAP. Don’t wait for the next scheduled session.
Role-specific Training
Employees with certain roles should receive more targeted privacy training tailored to their responsibilities. For example, employees handling HIPAA-regulated data must have HIPAA training. Employees engaged in marketing should be trained in the rules of various marketing laws. Engineers and project leads should be trained about privacy and data protection by design.
Making It Stick: Effective Training Strategies
You might be wondering that all this sounds like a lot of training. Won’t it take too much time?
The answer is no. Each training course need not be long. Key points can be made in just a few minutes. The most important goals are to make employees care, help them recognize when there’s a privacy issue, and direct them to consult with the privacy team.
Creating a Culture of Privacy Awareness
Remember, privacy training isn’t just about compliance. It’s about creating a culture where privacy is woven into every decision and action.
When employees understand why privacy matters and how their actions impact it, they’re more likely to make smart decisions day-to-day.
Key Takeaways
- Provide comprehensive privacy training to new hires within their first week.
- Conduct annual privacy training for all employees.
- Implement short periodic training to reinforce key points and cover specific topics
- Deliver ad-hoc training when significant changes occur
- Offer more frequent, role-specific training for employees in particular roles
- Use varied, engaging training methods
- View privacy training as an ongoing process, not a one-time event
Make privacy training an ongoing commitment, not just an annual checkbox.
Since its founding by Professor Daniel J. Solove in 2010, TeachPrivacy has provided training for hundreds of organizations, boutique to Fortune 500, both nationwide and globally. A leading international expert in privacy law, Solove is a law professor at George Washington University Law School, has authored more than 10 books and more than 100 articles, as well as given lectures around the world. His LinkedIn blog has more than 1 million followers. Click here for more information about Professor Solove.