Straits Interactive, an IAPP training partner, has introduced what it is describing as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN’s) first integrated privacy compliance management platform for local organizations.

The Data Protection Management System (DPMS) is a comprehensive software-as-a-service platform to assist local and regional data protection officers (DPOs) in operationalizing their data privacy activities "in a systematic and process-driven manner," Straits noted in its announcement, adding, "As a corporate member and an official training partner of the IAPP, Straits Interactive opted to adopt IAPP’s privacy operational life cycle model (Assess, Protect, Sustain and Respond or APSR) as the foundation of the system.”

With data protection being fairly new to the ASEAN, Straits Interactive CEO Kevin Shepherdson, CIPM, explained, “We have been working over the last 12 months to help our clients be operationally compliant with the new data protection laws in the region. Many of the DPOs and compliance heads we work with struggle with productivity in their multiple roles.”

A major challenge, he said, is that DPOs must “manually coordinate compliance across multiple stakeholders and departments and timely compliance-management reporting. Thus, they require a system that delivers automation, collaboration and productivity for them to get compliant and to stay compliant.”

Straits Interactive has combined its expertise with that of its partner organizations into DPMS, Shepherdson noted, adding the result is "a compliance platform with integrated solutions for various data privacy needs and at any stage of the compliance process.”

Straits Interactive’s partners, which address various data privacy needs within the operational life cycle, include:

• AvePoint—Compliance Guardian, a full data loss prevention, risk and compliance solution to mitigate privacy, information security and compliance risks;
• Fuji Xerox Singapore—Multifunction Devices that can be integrated with software that take into account privacy requirements;
• Hoiio—Do-Not-Call (DNC) SpiderGate management system;
• IBM—Straits Interactive hosts DPMS on IBM’s Softlayer secure cloud, provides clients with the option to host their data on their own separate IBM Softlayer private cloud and utilises IBM Bluemix for rapid development of product prototypes;
• Nymity—Template resources and the latest privacy-compliance developments through online research and alerts for any jurisdiction;
• Shred It—global leader in secure information destruction services, and
• Symantec—global information protection expert with offerings that include endpoint security and management, encryption, Secure Socket Layer certificates, user authentication, data loss prevention and managed security services.

“The IAPP is pleased that the IAPP’s operational life cycle model has been adopted as the foundation of the DPMS,” said IAPP President and CEO Trevor Hughes, CIPP, adding, “We are equally excited to see a strong collaboration between our Singapore-based training company, Straits Interactive, and several of the IAPP’s corporate members to support the development of this globally accessible privacy impact assessment tool.”

For more on the DPMS, visit the Straits Interactive website here.