DSCI DCPLA Online Practice Questions and Exam Preparation

DSCI DCPLA Online Questions & Answers

• Question 41:

  A newly appointed Data Protection officer is reviewing the organization's existing privacy policy. Which of the following would be the most critical factor for the review process?

  A. Awareness of the business units about the privacy policy
  B. Changes in the legal/regulatory regime
  C. Privacy policies of industry peers
  D. Foreseeable challenges in the effective implementation of the policy
  B. Changes in the legal/regulatory regime

• Question 42:

  Can a DSCI Certified Lead Assessor for Privacy, not currently an employee of a DSCI Accredited Organization, conduct external assessment leading to DSCI Privacy certification?

  A. True
  B. False
  A. True

• Question 43:

  Create an inventory of the specific contractual terms that explicitly mention the data protection requirements. This an imperative of which DPF practice area?

  A. Visibility over Personal Information (VPI)
  B. Information Usage and Access (IUA)
  C. Privacy Contract Management (PCM)
  D. Regulatory Compliance Intelligence (RCI)
  C. Privacy Contract Management (PCM)

• Question 44:

  There are several privacy incidents reported in an organization. The organization plans to analyze and learn from these incidents. Which privacy practice will the organization have to implement for the same?

  A. Information usage and access
  B. Privacy contract management
  C. Privacy awareness and training
  D. Privacy monitoring and incident management
  D. Privacy monitoring and incident management

• Question 45:

  "Data which cannot be attributed to a particular data subject without use of additional information." Which of the following best describes the above statement?

  A. Anonymized Data
  B. Metadata
  C. Pseudonymized Data
  D. None of the above
  C. Pseudonymized Data

• Question 46:

  RCI and PCM

  In April 2011, the rules were issued under Section 43A of the IT Act by the Government of India and the `body corporates' were required to comply with these rules. The Corporate legal team tried to understand and interpret the rules but struggled to understand its applicability esp. to client relationships and business functions. So, the company hired an IT Act legal expert to advise them on the Section 43A rules.

  To start with, the company identified the PI dealt with by business functions as part of the earlier visibility exercise, but it wanted to reassure itself. Therefore, a specific exercise was conducted to revisit `sensitive personal information' dealt by business functions. It was realized that the company collects lot of SPI of its employees and therefore `reasonable security practices' need to be adhered to by the functions that deal with SPI. It was also ascertained that many of this SPI is being dealt by third parties, some of which are also located outside India. To meet the requirements of the rules, the company reviewed all the contracts and inserted a clause ?`the service provider shall implement reasonable security practices and procedures as per the IT (Amendment) Act, 2008'. Some of the large service providers were ISO 27001 certified and they claimed that they fulfill the requirements of `reasonable security practices'. However, some SME service providers did not understand what would `reasonable security practices' imply and requested the company to clarify, which referred them to Rule 8 of the Section 43A. Some small scale service providers expressed their unwillingness to get ISO certified, given the costs involved.

  (Note: Candidates are requested to make and state assumptions wherever appropriate to reach a definitive conclusion)

  Introduction and Background

  XYZ is a major India based IT and Business Process Management (BPM) service provider listed at BSE and NSE. It has more than 1.5 lakh employees operating in 100 offices across 30 countries. It serves more than 500 clients across industry verticals -- BFSI, Retail, Government, Healthcare, Telecom among others in Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The company provides IT services including application development and maintenance, IT Infrastructure management, consulting, among others. It also offers IT products mainly for its BFSI customers.

  The company is witnessing phenomenal growth in the BPM services over last few years including Finance and Accounting including credit card processing, Payroll processing, Customer support, Legal Process Outsourcing, among others and has rolled out platform based services. Most of the company's revenue comes from the US from the BFSI sector. In order to diversify its portfolio, the company is looking to expand its operations in Europe. India, too has attracted company's attention given the phenomenal increase in domestic IT spend esp. by the government through various large scale IT projects. The company is also very aggressive in the cloud and mobility space, with a strong focus on delivery of cloud services. When it comes to expanding operations in Europe, company is facing difficulties in realizing the full potential of the market because of privacy related concerns of the clients arising from the stringent regulatory requirements based on EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR).

  To get better access to this market, the company decided to invest in privacy, so that it is able to provide increased assurance to potential clients in the EU and this will also benefit its US operations because privacy concerns are also on rise in the US. It will also help company leverage outsourcing opportunities in the Healthcare sector in the US which would involve protection of sensitive medical records of the US citizens. The company believes that privacy will also be a key differentiator in the cloud business going forward. In short, privacy was taken up as a strategic initiative in the company in early 2011.

  Since XYZ had an internal consulting arm, it assigned the responsibility of designing and implementing an enterprise wide privacy program to the consulting arm. The consulting arm had very good expertise in information security consulting but had limited expertise in the privacy domain. The project was to be driven by CIO's office, in close consultation with the Corporate Information Security and Legal functions.

  Did the company take sufficient steps to protect SPI dealt by its service providers and ensure that it complies with the regulatory requirements? Was referring to `reasonable security practices' sufficient in the contracts or the company should have also considered some other measures for privacy protection as well? (250 to 500 words)

  A. See the answer in explanation below.
  B. PlaceHolder
  C. PlaceHolder
  D. PlaceHolder
  A. See the answer in explanation below.

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  Explanation/Reference:

  The consulting arm of XYZ developed a comprehensive privacy program in line with the company's goal to leverage its existing technology infrastructure, resources and capabilities for protecting data. The program had three parts ? awareness and training, policy development and implementation. On the awareness front, extensive training was conducted for employees on various aspects of privacy including GDPR compliance. This was followed by the development and rollout of an enterprise-wide privacy policy which clearly defined the various steps to be taken to protect sensitive personal information (SPI) such as encryption, access controls etc. After this, customer contracts were reviewed for appropriate protection clauses and service providers were made to sign `reasonable security practices' clauses in their contractual obligations as specified in EU GDPR. At first glance, it seemed that XYZ had taken adequate steps to protect SPI dealt by its service providers and ensure that it complies with the regulatory requirements. However, on careful scrutiny, there were some lacunae in the program. For instance, as per EU GDPR, personal data must be pseudonymized or encrypted prior to transfer from one entity to another. In this case, though encryption was mentioned in the policy documents but there were no specific measures given for ensuring proper encryption of data before any transfer. Similarly, `reasonable security practices' clause was included in customer contracts but there was no mention of any tools like firewalls or other means of protecting sensitive information which could have further strengthened the privacy protection efforts made by the company. Thus, it is clear that XYZ did made some efforts to comply with the EU GDPR but in order to ensure full compliance, more specific measures should have been taken and all contractual obligations must be such that they clearly define the security and privacy controls that need to be put in place between customer/client and service provider. This would further give customers greater assurance of privacy protection from XYZ's services. Going forward, XYZ can consider investing in more advanced technologies like biometrics authentication etc for maximum security of data. Furthermore, the company should also ensure periodic reviews of its policy documents and contracts so as to ensure better protection of sensitive personal information. Overall, though XYZ took some reasonable steps to protect SPI of its customers, it should have done more by introducing advanced security measures and including stringent contractual obligations for service providers. This would have enabled the company to achieve full compliance with EU GDPR and ensure greater security of customer's personal data.

• Question 47:

  RCI and PCM

  Given its global operations, the company is exposed to multiple regulations (privacy related) across the globe and needs to comply mostly through contracts for client relationships and directly for business functions. The corporate legal team is responsible for managing the contracts and understanding, interpreting and translating the legal requirements. There is no formal tracking of regulations done. The knowledge about regulations mainly comes through interaction with the client team. In most of the contracts, the clients have simply referred to the applicable legislations without going any further in terms of their applicability and impact on the company. Since business expansion is the priority, the contracts have been signed by the company without fully understanding their applicability and impact. Incidentally, when the privacy initiatives were being rolled out, a major data breach occurred at one of the healthcare clients located in the US. The US state data protection legislation required the client to notify the data breach. During investigations, it emerged that the data breach happened because of some vulnerability in the system owned by the client but managed by the company and the breach actually happened 5 months back and came to notice now. The system was used to maintain medical records of the patients. This vulnerability had been earlier identified by a third party vulnerability assessment of the system and the closure of vulnerability was assigned to the company. The company had made the requisite changes and informed the client. The client, however, was of the view that the changes were actually not made by the company and they therefore violated the terms of contract which stated that ?"the company shall deploy appropriate organizational and technology measures for protection of personal information in compliance with the XX state data protection legislation." The company could not produce necessary evidences to prove that the configuration changes were actually made by it (including when these were made).

  (Note: Candidates are requested to make and state assumptions wherever appropriate to reach a definitive conclusion)

  Introduction and Background

  XYZ is a major India based IT and Business Process Management (BPM) service provider listed at BSE and NSE. It has more than 1.5 lakh employees operating in 100 offices across 30 countries. It serves more than 500 clients across industry verticals -- BFSI, Retail, Government, Healthcare, Telecom among others in Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The company provides IT services including application development and maintenance, IT Infrastructure management, consulting, among others. It also offers IT products mainly for its BFSI customers.

  The company is witnessing phenomenal growth in the BPM services over last few years including Finance and Accounting including credit card processing, Payroll processing, Customer support, Legal Process Outsourcing, among others and has rolled out platform based services. Most of the company's revenue comes from the US from the BFSI sector. In order to diversify its portfolio, the company is looking to expand its operations in Europe. India, too has attracted company's attention given the phenomenal increase in domestic IT spend esp. by the government through various large scale IT projects. The company is also very aggressive in the cloud and mobility space, with a strong focus on delivery of cloud services. When it comes to expanding operations in Europe, company is facing difficulties in realizing the full potential of the market because of privacy related concerns of the clients arising from the stringent regulatory requirements based on EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR).

  To get better access to this market, the company decided to invest in privacy, so that it is able to provide increased assurance to potential clients in the EU and this will also benefit its US operations because privacy concerns are also on rise in the US. It will also help company leverage outsourcing opportunities in the Healthcare sector in the US which would involve protection of sensitive medical records of the US citizens. The company believes that privacy will also be a key differentiator in the cloud business going forward. In short, privacy was taken up as a strategic initiative in the company in early 2011. Since XYZ had an internal consulting arm, it assigned the responsibility of designing and implementing an enterprise wide privacy program to the consulting arm. The consulting arm had very good expertise in information security consulting but had limited expertise in the privacy domain. The project was to be driven by CIO's office, in close consultation with the Corporate Information Security and Legal functions.

  What should be the learning for the company going forward? What should the consultants suggest? (250 to 500 words)

  A. See the answer in explanation below.
  B. PlaceHolder
  C. PlaceHolder
  D. PlaceHolder
  A. See the answer in explanation below.

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  Explanation/Reference:

  The consultants should suggest a comprehensive and integrated privacy program for the company which addresses the current regulatory requirements while being proactive in anticipating any changes to these regulations. The program should be effective, flexible, cost-efficient and easy to understand and implement. To begin with, the program should involve an assessment of all existing processes and procedures that are related to personal data processing in order to identify potential areas of risk. The potential risks along with recommended mitigating controls should then be documented in a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) report. This will enable the organization to assess its compliance level against applicable regulations. It is also important for XYZ to have strong Data Governance policies and procedures along with appropriate organizational structures and accountability mechanisms in place. This will include a Data Privacy Officer (DPO) who is responsible for overseeing the compliance program and being the point of contact for data protection supervisory authorities. The DPO should be part of the management team and report to the CIO's office as well as senior-level executives. A consultant should also recommend data minimization, pseudonymization, encryption, and other security measures to protect personal information. In addition, they can recommend regular privacy awareness training sessions for employees, so that they are up-to-date on changes in regulations and understand how their role impacts data privacy and security. Lastly, all systems and processes should be monitored and audited to ensure compliance with relevant regulations. As a result, consultants should provide clients in the EU and US with an integrated and comprehensive privacy program that provides the necessary assurances and protects sensitive data from unauthorized access or misuse. By leveraging outsourcing opportunities in the healthcare sector in the US, XYZ could potentially gain competitive advantage.

• Question 48:

  Which of the following are the key factors that need to be considered for determining the applicability of the privacy principles? (Choose all that apply.)

  A. The role of the organization in determining the purpose of the data collection
  B. How and where the data is coming in the organization
  C. Requirements stipulated by the local authorities from where the organization operating
  D. Organization's commitment to the external stakeholder with respect to privacy
  A. The role of the organization in determining the purpose of the data collection
  B. How and where the data is coming in the organization

• Question 49:

  Your district council releases an interactive of map of orange trees in the district which shows that the locality in which your house is located has the highest concentration of orange trees. Does the council map contain your personal information?

  A. Yes your ownership of the property is a matter of public record.
  B. No Orange trees are not a person and so it can't have personal information.
  C. It depends on the context of other information associated with the map.
  D. None of the above.
  C. It depends on the context of other information associated with the map.

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  Explanation/Reference:

• Question 50:

  PIS

  The company has a well-defined and effectively implemented security policy. As in case of access control, the security controls vary in different client relationships based on the client requirements but certain basic or hygiene security practices / controls are implemented organization wide. The consultants have advised the information security function to realign the company's security policy, risk assessment, data classification, etc to include privacy aspects. But the consultants are struggling to make information security function understand what exact changes need to be made and the security function itself is unable to figure it out.

  (Note: Candidates are requested to make and state assumptions wherever appropriate to reach a definitive conclusion)

  Introduction and Background

  XYZ is a major India based IT and Business Process Management (BPM) service provider listed at BSE and NSE. It has more than 1.5 lakh employees operating in 100 offices across 30 countries. It serves more than 500 clients across industry verticals -- BFSI, Retail, Government, Healthcare, Telecom among others in Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The company provides IT services including application development and maintenance, IT Infrastructure management, consulting, among others. It also offers IT products mainly for its BFSI customers.

  The company is witnessing phenomenal growth in the BPM services over last few years including Finance and Accounting including credit card processing, Payroll processing, Customer support, Legal Process Outsourcing, among others and has rolled out platform based services. Most of the company's revenue comes from the US from the BFSI sector. In order to diversify its portfolio, the company is looking to expand its operations in Europe. India, too has attracted company's attention given the phenomenal increase in domestic IT spend esp. by the government through various large scale IT projects. The company is also very aggressive in the cloud and mobility space, with a strong focus on delivery of cloud services. When it comes to expanding operations in Europe, company is facing difficulties in realizing the full potential of the market because of privacy related concerns of the clients arising from the stringent regulatory requirements based on EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR).

  To get better access to this market, the company decided to invest in privacy, so that it is able to provide increased assurance to potential clients in the EU and this will also benefit its US operations because privacy concerns are also on rise in the US. It will also help company leverage outsourcing opportunities in the Healthcare sector in the US which would involve protection of sensitive medical records of the US citizens. The company believes that privacy will also be a key differentiator in the cloud business going forward. In short, privacy was taken up as a strategic initiative in the company in early 2011.

  Since XYZ had an internal consulting arm, it assigned the responsibility of designing and implementing an enterprise wide privacy program to the consulting arm. The consulting arm had very good expertise in information security consulting but had limited expertise in the privacy domain. The project was to be driven by CIO's office, in close consultation with the Corporate Information Security and Legal functions. Can you please guide the information security function to realign company's security initiatives to include privacy protection, keeping in mind that the client security requirements would vary across relationships? (250 to 500 words)

  A. See the answer in explanation below.
  B. PlaceHolder
  C. PlaceHolder
  D. PlaceHolder
  A. See the answer in explanation below.

  ---

  Explanation/Reference:

  The information security function of XYZ needs to realign the company's security initiatives to include privacy protection and make sure that it meets its client's requirements. The Information Security team must understand the legal and regulatory requirements for data privacy for each region in which XYZ operates, as well as industry standards such as ISO 27001/2 or NIST 800-53. This will help ensure that the organization is complying with applicable laws and regulations, while also helping build trust with clients by demonstrating that they take privacy seriously. The Information Security team should also identify the most important risks associated with data privacy in order to determine what additional measures need to be taken in order to protect sensitive data from misuse or loss. The team should then assess the appropriate risk management and privacy controls to ensure that the data is being managed in a secure manner. This could include encryption of sensitive data, access control measures such as role-based permissions, and regular reviews of user access rights to ensure proper security protocols are being followed. In addition, XYZ should create an internal privacy policy which outlines its commitment to protecting the privacy of customers and employees. The policy should be reviewed periodically to ensure it meets changing regulatory requirements and industry standards. The policy must also be communicated to all staff members so they know what their responsibilities are with regards to protecting personal data. Finally, XYZ should have a robust incident response plan in place for when breaches or unauthorized access occur. This should cover procedures for detecting, investigating, and responding to potential data breaches. It should also include measures to prevent future incidents and ensure that customer data is protected going forward. By taking these measures, XYZ will be able to meet its client's security requirements while also demonstrating its commitment to protecting the privacy of their customers. This can help build trust with existing clients as well as new ones, making it easier for them to do business with the company. In addition, a comprehensive privacy protection program can help protect XYZ from costly legal or regulatory penalties in case of a data breach. Therefore, it is crucial for XYZ to invest in robust privacy protection initiatives in order to realize the full potential of the market.