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Growing numbers of Americans are making demands on corporate America to treat their personal information with secrecy. Jacqueline Klosek, an attorney and author of the new book, “The War on Privacy,” believes private industry faces a precarious balance, trying to simultaneously maintain consumer privacy while also complying with governmental demands for information. She offers her clients the following additional tips:

1. Conduct an Internal Audit. Businesses should conduct an internal audit to understand: what data they are collecting, how they are using that data, with whom they are sharing that data, how that data is being protected and related issues.

2. Develop a Privacy Policy. The company’s policies and plans should be communicated to customers and clients through a Privacy Policy to clearly state how the company can be contacted in regards to information and the types of third parties that will have access to such information.

3. Be Broad. When drafting the Privacy Policy, it is smart to be as broad as possible. This will give the company greater latitude if by the government to hand over data or if faced with other potentially unanticipated events such as corporate restructuring, mergers, and acquisitions.

4. Plan Ahead and Be Prepared for the Inevitable. The company should anticipate that it could face a government subpoena demanding its client’s personal information records. Then the company can suitably prepare its policies to set its clients’ and customers’ expectations regarding the privacy of their personal information.

5. Seek Prior Consent. Obtain prior consent from consumers/clients about potential personal data transfers that could be subpoenaed by the government. The same holds true for other types of transfers, including transfers to business partners and service providers.

6. Conduct Due Diligence When Outsourcing. Examine the third-party service provider’s experience with privacy and data security. Investigate any privacy complaints the service provider has faced.

7. Protect Your Website. Implement a web monitoring program that automatically runs privacy scans to ensure that the site hasn’t been compromised and that privacy measures remain intact. HBM

For more information on “The War on Privacy, visit www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, and www.jacquelineklosek.com