The existence of policies and procedures surrounding the implementation of a business strategy are the hallmarks of maturity within a company’s growth. When insiders make business decisions that violate the law, or those policies, the potential for increased risk to the business is present. We see this most often when individuals in positions of trust violate policy or procedural constraints, whether on purpose (theft) or accidentally (human error) and data goes missing or flies out the door into the public domain.
A recent settlement order, dated March 3, between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Weight Watchers International and its wholly owned subsidiary Kurbo demonstrates what may occur if those insiders evolve a business model that ignores the law. Weight Watchers and Kurbo agreed to pay a fine of $1.5 million, delete information “illegally collected from children under 13,” and “destroy any algorithms derived from the data.”
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