By Janet McCoy and Carol Pockrus

At Sovereign Bank, we believe that if you train your employees on privacy issues well, the rest of your privacy program will fall into place.

To help all our employees keep privacy issues in mind and solicit timely feedback, Sovereign has established a Privacy Council. The council, which meets monthly, is made up of team members from our various business units. Our motto on the council is “It’s all about respect,” and we try to look at privacy issues from the viewpoint of customers as if they were also present at council meetings.

Our first step in training is to ensure that when new employees are brought on board, they all hear the same message about privacy in general and about the specific privacy laws that affect financial institutions. Annually, they are then required to read materials and take an online test that reinforces privacy basics and informs them of any issues that have emerged in the past year.

In addition, Sovereign has built an Intranet site dedicated to privacy and do-not-solicit issues. The site houses all polices, a “frequently asked questions” section, links to helpful sites, and forms. It also includes a section where any employee can directly ask the Privacy Council questions that may not be addressed elsewhere on the site.

Periodically, the council sends employees messages on various issues. We try to word the messages in ways that will get everyone’s attention. For instance, we drafted an article about the do-not-call law for the front page of our Intranet and in-house newsletter. The title: “Is your cost center prepared to pay $11,000 per call?”

The Privacy Council also works with staff to develop clear communications strategies with customers. For example, we created a Sovereign Identity Theft Assistance Center, a one-stop shop for all customer concerns regarding ID theft. We have found that having clear, one-on-one dialogues with customers who are asking if they have been victims of ID theft has greatly reduced their losses.

All in all, we have found that by keeping employees in the loop on privacy issues, they can then create the same awareness with customers.

Janet McCoy is chief privacy officer and Carol Pockrus is director of privacy at Sovereign Bank. This article was adapted from their presentation at the May 10 KnowledgeNet luncheon in Philadelphia.

 

Ponemon Institute