NIST Privacy Framework: The Ultimate Guide

The continuing menace of cyber threats has drawn critical attention to data privacy for all kinds of organizations, big and small. companies should ensure that their data and customers’ data are secure by acting before the occurrence of the problem. Here, privacy protection, which can withstand cyber attacks like the NIST privacy framework, comes forth and serves as an ultimate shield.

NIST Privacy Framework, published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), provides recommendations and best practices. It aims to support enterprises in a way that they can mitigate privacy risks while maintaining the security of individual data.

In this article, we will explore the intricacies of the NIST privacy framework, its requirements, and how to implement it in your organization.

What is the NIST privacy framework?

NIST privacy framework guides companies on implementing necessary privacy measures and processes while helping them manage data usage, monitor privacy controls, and respond to privacy events. It helps organizations assess the privacy impacts of its assets and services.

The first edition of the Privacy Framework was launched (published) in January 2020. It consists of 3 essential components: The Core that holds the structure together, the Profiles that show how the studies are done, and the Implementation Tiers that keep everyone in check.

These elements are designed to assist your organization, whether you are a government agency, private company, or a non-profit organization that handles personal data.

Let’s dive into the details of the three components.

What are the components of the NIST privacy framework?

The NIST privacy cybersecurity framework comprises 3 essential components: Core, Profiles, and Implementation Tiers. As a voluntary tool, they strengthen privacy risk management needs by linking business mission drivers, organizational roles and responsibilities, and understanding of privacy risks.

1. Core

Comprises a series of activities and outcomes related to privacy protection. It facilitates communication from the executive level down to the implementation and operations levels within an organization.

2. Profiles

Profiles represent a customized selection of specific Functions, Categories, and Subcategories from the Core component. Profiles serve to characterize both the current status of a particular privacy activity and its intended target state, providing organizations with a roadmap for aligning their privacy practices with their business objectives.

3. Implementation Tiers

The Implementation Tiers assist in determining how to manage privacy risks by assessing their systems, practices, and resources across four levels:

• Partial (Tier 1): Basic awareness and understanding of privacy risks, with limited implementation of privacy controls
• Risk-Informed (Tier 2): Moderate awareness and integration of privacy risk management practices based on risk assessment findings
• Repeatable (Tier 3): Consistent privacy control implementation with established risk management and response processes
• Adaptive (Tier 4): Advanced and dynamic approach to privacy risk management

What are the principles of the NIST privacy framework?

The five elements represent the pillars of a successful NIST privacy framework. They help numerous organizations formulate a strong cybersecurity risk management strategy at a high level.

1. Identify

This pillar covers how you can understand and treat cyber risks across people, systems, data assets, and capabilities. Developed to help your company manage cyber risks, it accounts for all personal data that is collected, processed, or stored within the organization.

It includes guidelines on why the data was collected, who has access, and for how long it should be retained.

2. Govern

Governance focuses on prioritizing privacy values like transparency and data control. It’s essential to align your company’s privacy values and policies with your privacy risk assessment to bolster trust in your products and services.

To execute this, ensure that your workforce understands their roles and responsibilities. This will you to make informed decisions regarding managing privacy risks.

3. Control

This pillar covers whether you are evaluating, collecting, sharing, or retaining unnecessary data. Assess how your policies enable your organization and others to maintain control over data, with potential involvement from individuals.

4. Communicate

This involves developing policies for communicating both internally and externally regarding your data processing activities. It improves transparency and customer understanding by offering clear, easily accessible notices and reports. Implement alerts, nudges, or other signals to inform individuals about your data processing activities.

5. Protect

Under this principle, companies must safeguard personal and sensitive data by implementing fundamental security measures, assessing and mitigating risks, and upholding consistent policies to protect such data.

How to Implement the NIST Privacy Framework?

To implement the NIST Privacy Framework to the dot, follow the steps we have outlined below. Resorting to this built-in privacy significantly reduces the likelihood of data breaches and other potential security risks.

Here are the 8 steps you can take for implementation:

1. Determine the type of data you handle

The initial step in implementing the NIST Data Privacy Framework involves assessing the type of data your organization handles. The first thing you have to look at is what is inside your data infrastructure, what kind of data you gather, keep, store and share.

Through that, you will know what personal, financial, or business information is on the cards and starting dealing with the privacy risks management a lot better.

With this information at hand, one can form a baseline for developing privacy policies and practices that would apply to that data type specifically

2. Conduct a privacy risk assessment

The best way to operationalize the above step is to conduct a privacy risk assessment. This will help you to map your data to see how your data processing could cause problems for people or financial loss.

Then, think about how these issues would affect your organization, such as losing customer trust or damaging your reputation, which could hurt your business.

However, we understand that manually assessing your current privacy posture may be a herculean task.

This is why it’s a good idea to pivot to automation-powered tools to do it on the go. Sprinto is one platform that can help you carefully analyze risks, understand privacy impact, and encourage you to take precise actions.

It works seamlessly with your cloud setup to find any problems quickly and accurately. This ensures that you don’t overestimate or underestimate risks and enables you to create an accurate risk inventory.

3. Implement appropriate controls and safeguards

The third step, implementing appropriate controls and safeguards, involves putting measures in place to ensure personal data’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

This includes implementing security controls such as encryption, access controls, and authentication mechanisms to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information.

4. Develop a privacy program

Developing a NIST data privacy program starts with creating a set of policies, procedures, and controls to manage and safeguard personal information within your organization.

This program should be tailored to your organization’s specific needs and risks, taking into account the requirements of applicable regulations such as GDPR or CCPA.

Note: NIST Data Privacy Framework is flexible. Your organizations can select goals, activities, and compliance levels. If your company must only comply with the GDPR but not the CCPA, you can deprioritize any CCPA-specific requirements.

Key components of a privacy program may include:

• Privacy Policies: The organizations have these policies that spell out in specific detail how personal data is collected, used, retained, and distributed within the organization.
• Privacy Controls: The technical and administrative systems used to safeguard individuals’ personal data might include encryption, access control, filtering, and incident response procedures.
• Training on Privacy: Employee training programs include training on NIST data privacy policies, procedures, and how to deal with personal data correctly.
• Data Protection Procedures: These comprise measurement methods like positioning, storage, access controls, retention, and disposal.

5. Create concise privacy notices

A privacy notice is an outward-facing document that informs clients, customers, website visitors, authorities, and other relevant parties about how the company handles personal data.

Essentially, the NIST data protection framework suggests creating clear privacy notices for transparency and one that is easily understandable to individuals. These notices typically include:

6. Train your employees on privacy practices

Privacy training helps employees understand comprehensive privacy laws and company policies. This ensures that everyone follows the rules inside and outside the company. It’s important to explain the difference between data security and privacy during this training.

Promoting a culture of privacy and providing awareness training can reduce the risk of costly incidents, damage to reputation, and penalties from regulators.

7. Have an incident response plan

An incident response plan is a written guide that outlines how an organization will react to a security incident. It includes details like who is involved, their roles, the steps to follow during an incident, and how to communicate about it.

8. Invest in continuous monitoring of privacy controls

Setting up controls isn’t a one-time thing. Over time, risks can change, so it’s essential to keep monitoring your controls regularly. Continuous monitoring helps regularly assess and evaluate your privacy controls, policies, and procedures.

How does Sprinto help in continuous monitoring?

Sprinto simplifies continuous monitoring by handling NIST compliance tasks like constantly checking your privacy controls. If there are any issues or unusual activities, Sprinto alerts you. It also provides real-time updates on your controls, giving you a clear picture of your security status so you can make informed decisions.

Tips to implement the NIST Privacy Framework 

Tips for implementing the NIST Cybersecurity Framework are straightforward and always start with assessing your current privacy practices. However, apart from that, you can prep many things with a resource repository before getting started.

Here are some tips you can take into consideration before implementing the framework:

1. Conduct a privacy assessment

Conduct an evaluation of your existing privacy program to determine where you are and where you want to be in relation to it. Concentrate on areas such as inventory and mapping, business environment, risk assessment, and data processing ecosystem risk management.

2. Customize to your needs

The NIST Privacy Framework is designed with flexibility in mind hence it can be tailor-made for the unique requirements of your organization by ignoring irrelevant parts that will not serve your purpose.

3. Utilize informative references

For each subcategory in the Privacy Framework, map relevant standards, laws, regulations, and best practices (NIST has a repository of Informative References to support your implementation).

4. Prioritize risk management

Construct profiles that prioritize functions categories & subcategories for an approach to privacy risk management – compare existing and target profiles – highlight privacy goals & ensure third-party compliance obligations before sharing data.

5. Utilize implementation tiers for prioritization

In order to understand different levels of privacy maturity, refer to Implementation Tiers in Appendix E of the Privacy Framework so you can benchmark against them; thus, gauge the current maturity level within your organization, identify areas for improvement, and act accordingly, giving priority actions accordingly.

Also read: How to get NIST certified?

Benefits of implementing the NIST privacy framework

The benefit of implementing the NIST privacy framework is that it addresses the key security attributes of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, which has helped thousands of companies increase their level of data protection.

Here are some benefits of implementing the original framework:

• NIST Privacy Framework is widely recognized as an industry best practice. It represents the collective expertise of thousands of information security professionals who have agreed on the best way to protect privacy.
• As the NIST Privacy Framework sets its main goal on privacy risk assessment, it aligns cybersecurity management with business goals. This, in turn, enables integrated risk management and encourages better communication across the organization.
• Known for its flexibility, the NIST Privacy Framework’s outcomes-driven approach caters to various industries, from critical infrastructure firms to small and medium-sized enterprises. This helps in the implementation of ensuring privacy measures regardless of organization size.
• A focus on NIST data privacy builds trust among customers, reassuring them that their personal information is being handled responsibly and ethically.
• The framework allows businesses to use human, financial, and technical resources, leading to more flexible and customized approaches for different business needs.

What’s Next?

To implement proper data privacy practices, using a trusted resource like NIST, endorsed by countless experts, is essential. However, implementing the framework correctly requires significant effort.

Fortunately, the process becomes much smoother with a compliance automation platform like Sprinto.

Sprinto streamlines the NIST framework for companies, making it faster and easier. Our automation tool assesses your existing privacy controls and identifies what’s needed to meet compliance with various standards and regulations.

To learn more about how Sprinto can help your organization meet NIST requirements, schedule a demo today.

FAQs

What is NIST Privacy Controls?

NIST privacy controls encompass administrative, technical, and physical protective measures that an organization enacts to meet relevant privacy requirements while effectively managing privacy-related risks.

How many NIST privacy controls are there?

While NIST does not provide a standardized set of “privacy controls,” it offers comprehensive guidelines through NIST Special Publication 800-53 (NIST SP 800-53). This publication includes over 900 security controls categorized into 18 families.

Why use the NIST Privacy Framework?

Many companies deploy the NIST Privacy Framework because it’s a collaborative tool aimed at helping organizations identify and manage their privacy-related risks while fostering innovation in products and services.

What are the Privacy Controls in NIST 800-53?

NIST SP 800-53 contains over one thousand controls that have undergone five revisions. As a comprehensive directory for federal government agencies, they provide recommended measures of security &privacy for federal information systems. They have a role in preventing possible security threats as well as cyber-attacks.

Why is NIST so popular?

The NIST CSF is widely acclaimed for its effectiveness in developing and enhancing cybersecurity programs. It provides a reliable framework for organizations to navigate complex security challenges and adapt to evolving standards and regulations.