DATA MANAGEMENT

Secure Data Management

Introduction3

Unilever4

Unilever's Data Warehouse5

Subject Oriented6

Integrated6

Privacy and Security of Data6

Storage6

Information privacy policy (Unilever)7

Data Management8

Data Security8

Physical Security8

Logical Security9

Database of Unilever9

Access Controls10

Information Privacy11

Data Storage and Back-up12

Recommendations13

Conclusion14

References15

Secure Data Management

Introduction

Secure data management is one of the basic requirements of a company that deals with the personal data of its customers. Secure data management is also necessary to protect the official data of the company such as confidential files, patterns, and order details of the company. Nowadays almost every company has its own intranet or local area network that connects different departments of the company. This local area network (LAN) is used for the purpose of communication and data transfer inside the organisation. This LAN is then connected to the external internet in order to maintain connection with the external world. If the organisation does not have a proper data security system then it can be accessed and used by the external users. In this way the private costumer information is likely to be exposed to the external users, they can find their way to access the private information which can then be misused.

The personal data provided by the costumer should be kept under proper privacy and security. The use of personal data of the costumer is also bound by the laws of data privacy in order to maintain the privacy and trust of the costumer. Any organisation, which does not have a proper data management system, cannot gain the trust of the costumers besides it is the violation of the data privacy act.

Hence a secure networking system is required to protect the personal data of the costumers. This secure system includes different steps involved in the processing of the data which may include: how the data is accessed and retrieved by the user, how it is stored, and processed. It may also include how the data is encrypted and then decrypted and the information privacy policy of the organisation.

Here, the target of the analysis is Unilever PLC, an organisation known for a number of oil and fat based products.

Unilever

Unilever was founded as a result of the merger of a British soap maker company known as Lever Brothers and a Dutch company Margarine Unie in the year 1930. Since then it has made a number of corporate achievements, which include a number of products including food, beverages, personal care products, and cleaning agents. The company has more than 400 brands around the globe (Kees, 2003).

Few years back Unilever organised its data manually, by the use of some commercial scanning tools such as Microsoft's systems management server (SMS), this manual system was costly due to the use of manpower, took a large amount of time and provided unnecessary results to the users. In the past, Unilever has worked with Cytel on statistical analysis assignments. In an in-progress project with Cytel, the long term goal of the Unilever Data Management Team is to merge the important experimental data information into a centralised storage system using a standard and well recognised ...