Your productivity and efficiency can increase as you incorporate more technology into your real estate firm. Data protection becomes more important than ever, however, at the same time.
Why Protecting Data Is Important
Your real estate business often handles a lot of sensitive data, including social security numbers, company EINs, and financial information about tenants. Your renters, investors, and clients depend on you to uphold reliable privacy safeguards. Even if you are really good at what you do, consumers will find it difficult to trust your business if you don’t secure this private information.
Keeping Your Data Safe During Transactions
At every stage of your business, from the original purchase through administration to selling, protecting your data is essential. The 2020 FBI Internet Crime Report states that hacked email caused losses of $1.8 billion. Furthermore, according to title and escrow businesses, one out of every three transactions is the subject of a fraud effort. Although healing is conceivable, prevention is a preferable choice.
Keeping and Storing Information Correctly
The requirement for adequate storage and organizing is crucial, whether you save your information in file cabinets, on a hard drive, or on the cloud. You need to be able to quickly locate the appropriate information. However, you also need to make sure that it won’t be hacked, accidentally erased, or accessed by the incorrect person. There isn’t a single approach that works for all businesses. Spend some time locating a reliable storage option that is extremely secure and meets the demands of your company.
Reducing Data Risk
The abuse of personally identifiable information is always a possibility. It’s crucial to plan for the worst case so that you can safeguard your client and tenant data from potential attackers. You should have the following procedures and rules about the data you store:
- Who is permitted access to data, and why?
- The location of sensitive data storage and the encryption method
- What you’ll do in the event of a data breach or other problem
- How long you’ll keep the data on file (for instance, would you remove it once a tenant’s lease expires or an investor ceases to be a client)?
Maintaining Compliance With All Applicable State and Federal Laws
What businesses are permitted to do with data is governed by state and federal legislation. Make sure you keep up with legislative changes. Depending on your location, there can be rules restricting the storage and preservation of data. There may also be rules that require privacy statements to be included on specific papers, such as lease and sales agreements. These explanations will explain how your coworkers’ data is created, saved, and used.
What Is Your Plan for Protecting Data?
You still need to have a full system in place to properly safeguard your data. Utilizing a secure software system alone is insufficient; you also need organizational policies and processes in place. Failure to do so may have severe repercussions for your company as well as the people who rely on you to protect their personal information.