Watchfire, PwC to co-market privacy legislation monitoring tools

Executives at Ottawa-based Watchfire Corp say a new partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers has built new privacy-protection tools that will eventually help Internet users trust that their private information online stays that way. Watchfire Corp1 Hines Road Kanata, Ontario K2K 3C7 (613) 599-3888 The two companies announced a co-marketing agreement last week in which Watchfire will provide privacy monitoring tools as part of PwC’s larger privacy audit initiative. The software is aimed at large web sites that have thousands and even tens of thousands of pages which may have been designed before tough new privacy legislation was introduced in Canada and elsewhere. Watchfire president Michael Weider says good site design can’t necessarily catch all the points at which personal information is being collected, and that in a large enterprise management and technical staff don’t always communicate how information is to be used, stored or distributed. That’s a concern, he says, because security breaches can be costly and embarrassing, especially if they make headlines as several high-profile U.S. stories have illustrated. The company cites research statistics indicating almost US$18 billion could be lost by 2002 as consumers shy from using the web to make online purchases over privacy concerns. Further, legislation such as Canada’s Bill C-6 mandate privacy protection and violators could face stiff fines. In response, the company has built a software tool, WebCPO, that automates the process of looking for potential breaches. Working with the same web-crawler technology the company has developed to monitor quality issues within a web site, Watchfire has created a tool which automatically looks for areas of potential concern at the point of transaction, as well as cookies and user tracking, lapses such as privacy statements that aren’t linked to other pages and other likely areas of privacy breaches. Potential problems are reported over a variety of platforms including warnings to the desktops and cell phones of site operator executives. Weider concedes that the product is a back-end tool, and that consumers won’t necessarily understand the processes set in place to protect their information. Still, PwC partner Stephen Del Vecchio points out that companies are increasingly turning to third parties to audit sites for compliance with privacy policies. In Canada, several parties have already come together under the CANARIE Inc banner to create "trustmarks" that would indicate compliance with standards for online privacy procedures (CNM, July 26/00). The Watchfire product will initially be aimed at organizations with large databases of customer information such as the health care field and financial services sector, both of which have come under new laws here and in the United States. Other markets, including government, will eventually be brought into the fold. The product isn’t yet completely shrink-wrap, and both partners will reap revenues from integrating and implementing it. Weider says that while both Watchfire and PwC will market the service, it’s likely that PwC’s greater global reach and profile will turn it into the main conduit. PwC recognized the need for an automated tool to provide its clients. Not wanting to build that capability in-house, Del Vecchio and Brendon Lynch of PwC’s E-business solutions and privacy practices identified Watchfire as a partner. Weider won’t say how large the market could be, but the company touts research statistics indicating that fewer than 19 per cent of Fortune 1000 companies are in "reasonable" compliance with new privacy regulations, and that the first year cost to toe the line could be as much as US$5 to US$12 million.

Watchfire, PwC to co-market privacy legislation monitoring tools

Broadcast | May 17, 2001

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Watchfire, PwC to co-market privacy legislation monitoring tools

Broadcast | May 17, 2001

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