Utilities Turn Attention to Data Protection

Digital technology empowers energy companies to replace traditional, time consuming, often inefficient manual processes with electronic exchanges. One challenge becomes protecting that information. As a result, data sovereignty and compliance are rising up the utility priority list.

Data volumes are growing at mind boggling rates. In 2020, the world created 64.2 zettabytes (1ZB equals 1 trillion gigabytes) of data, and that number is expected to grow to 180.7Z bytes in 2025, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23%, according to International Data Corp.

Energy companies not only have greater volumes of data than ever before but also need to protect it more closely because they are constantly under attack. In fact, cybercrime inflicted damages totaling $6 trillion globally in 2021, and the number is expected to reach $10.5 trillion in 2025, according to CyberVentures.

Data Privacy Regulations Increase

New regulations are emerging that require energy companies to put solution in place that protect information. For instance, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 gave consumers more control over the personal information that businesses collect about them. The legislation also provides guidance to businesses about the steps they need to take to ensure compliance with the goals.

This law secures provides consumers with

• The requirement to know about the personal information a business collects about them and how it is used and shared
• The right to opt-out of the sale or sharing of their personal information
• The ability to delete personal information collected from them (with a few exceptions)
• The right to non-discrimiation for exercising their CCPA rights.

Because of such legislation, a growing number of energy companies are paying more attention to this issue. Almost half (48%) of energy companies placed data sovereignty and industry compliance high on their IT priority list, and that number is only expected to rise in the future, according to IDC.