A new scheme matching up IT professionals from the private sector to provide free advice on security and data protection to charities has been announced.
The GiveADay initiative will see senior technology professionals from UK companies paired up with charities according to their needs. So far almost 100 IT professionals, including Andrezj Kawalec, chief technology officer at HP, have joined the scheme ahead of the official launch later this month.
Amar Singh, GiveADay founder and data privacy and security executive said: “Charities are in a particularly vulnerable position – they hold a lot of sensitive data on both their service users and donors.”
He added that the requirement for charities to report data breaches to the Information Commissioner’s Office “results in disproportionate fines to the third sector plus the stigma of adverse publicity that can severely impact on operations and fundraising ability”.
The Charities Securities Forum (CSF) has welcomed the launch of GiveADay. Martyn Croft, co-founder of the CSF and chief information officer at the Salvation Army, said: “For GiveADay to facilitate easy access to freely given expertise in this way is a fantastic opportunity for all charities to further enhance the information security so essential to their work.”
Charities that have already signed up to receive support include Cancer Research UK, Great Ormond Street Hospital’s Children’s Charity and Future First.
Charities can register to receive support from GiveADay online if they fit all of the following criteria:
1. Do you look after more than 5000 personal data records?
2. Do you have personal details of vulnerable members of society?
3. Do you hold sensitive and personal data of your donors, beneficiaries and volunteers?
