Emerging Compliance Risks in a Rapidly Changing World

The Central Role of Compliance
In many industries, the intricate global regulatory landscape now underscores the need for proper corporate regulatory practices. The mounting emphasis on consumer privacy, data protection, and new environmental legislation signifies the vital role of compliance in ensuring operational and ecological stability.

The crucial role being played by compliance professionals is that of navigators in the challenge of multiple, rapid changes across their organisations. Accenture’s 2022 Compliance Risk Study assessed the views of compliance leaders from sectors including banking, capital markets, and health. The results indicate that globally, compliance teams are grappling with increasing fast-moving changes and an ever-expanding compliance remit. Three particular points of focus are highlighted:
• Intensification: The study highlights intensified transformation and emerging compliance requirements.
• Shifting mindsets: Compliance leaders recognise the need to shift their mindset, favouring agility, adaptability and technological integration.
• Rising priority: Positioning compliance at the board level is crucial for managing risks, fostering a robust compliance culture, and ensuring business resilience.

Changing Compliance Needs
Cybersecurity remains paramount for organisations globally in 2023. Given the constantly changing threat landscape and escalating sophistication of cyberattacks, adhering to security norms is essential. As technology advances, compliance norms also shift. These shifts are notably influenced by emerging tech, and especially the fast-moving adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) input to businesses.

This swift technological progress brings both enticing prospects and very real threats. Companies embracing digital transformation must address risks like cybersecurity flaws, data privacy concerns and digital regulatory compliance. Here it is vital to weave compliance into digital strategies to sidestep potential legal and reputational pitfalls.

Allied to this, the regulatory scene is in constant flux, with fresh laws emerging annually to match technological advancements. Keeping abreast of these changes is crucial for organisations to remain compliant with pertinent laws and sector-specific rules. Six particular areas of consideration are notable in concerns both for compliance officers and for company leadership in every business globally.

Six Risks in Compliance
1. Artificial Intelligence: Risks and Concerns
The intersection of AI and cybersecurity brings forth various concerns. Foremost is the rise of advanced threats. Malicious entities can harness AI to create evasive cyber threats, with AI-boosted malware, automated attack tools and intelligent bots heightening attack efficiency, posing a challenge to cybersecurity defences.

AI systems can also be targets. Adversarial attacks can alter input data, causing AI to misclassify or make errors. AI’s dependence on vast data makes it vulnerable to data poisoning. If compromised, it can produce biased AI models. Manipulated data can mislead AI, causing flawed cybersecurity decisions. Moreover, AI advancements also amplify insider threats. Individuals with AI system access might exploit vulnerabilities, misusing privileges or manipulating AI undetected. The increasing involvement of AI makes addressing such threats tougher.

Relying heavily on AI for cybersecurity might even bring its own risks. If AI becomes the main defence without human oversight, organisations might be vulnerable to AI-targeted attacks. It’s essential to merge human expertise with AI capabilities for balance. Addressing these AI concerns demands a comprehensive approach, covering technical, regulatory and ethical aspects. Organisations using AI must weigh its benefits and risks, ensuring robust measures against cyberattacks and promoting transparency in AI systems, championing a robust cybersecurity culture where AI’s role is responsibly defined.

2. Artificial Intelligence: Ethical Implications
Recent strides in AI, including tools like ChatGBT and voice generators, have spurred various ethical dilemmas. One increasingly pressing concern is privacy and data handling. AI systems, such as ChatGBT, hinge on substantial data to produce accurate outcomes. The gathering and utilisation of personal data highlights issues of privacy and protection. Ethical challenges emerge when AI contributes to data breaches or scrutinises personal data without permission. Organisations must ethically manage data, secure consent and also bolster security to safeguard individual privacy.

Another current quandary revolves around whether AI can truly mirror human ethics and values. If this alignment is not guaranteed, we might be inadvertently endangering ourselves. The pervasive growth of AI could result in diminished human control, with AI dominating professions and steering the future of the technological era.

3. Security Compliance Regulation
Ever-changing security compliance regulations are certainly vital in today’s digital world. With technological progress and emerging threats, governmental and regulatory bodies work diligently to craft and enforce frameworks safeguarding sensitive data. A defining feature of these regulations is their adaptability, necessitating regular updates to address new risks and incorporate the latest security measures against evolving cyber challenges.

However, keeping pace with the fluidity of compliance trends proves demanding. Organisations must consistently monitor these changes, refresh security policies and provide continuous staff training. It’s imperative for organisations to allocate resources, stay abreast of regulatory shifts, interpret them accurately and swiftly implement necessary adjustments to ensure compliance. Non-compliance risks hefty financial repercussions, damage to reputation and legal ramifications.

4. Engaging with Vendors
Third-party vendors are pivotal to the smooth operation of organisations across sectors. Yet, in today’s globalised and interconnected landscape, working with third parties presents security challenges that could jeopardise confidentiality, integrity and accessibility for customers.

Compliance officers have become instrumental in overseeing and reducing third-party risks, guaranteeing organisations uphold stringent security measures in all endeavours. Effective vendor risk management bolsters an organisation’s overall security stance and reinforces trust amongst customers and stakeholders.

5. The Era of Automated Compliance
Security compliance has consistently been an intricate and perpetually evolving domain that can be challenging to navigate. Fortunately, compliance automation has utterly revolutionised how businesses manage their security compliance and IT audits in recent years, automating the audit-preparedness journey and enabling companies to approach an audit with full confidence.

However, while automated compliance streamlines regulatory processes, it’s not without pitfalls. Over-reliance can lead to undetected errors, with systems occasionally misinterpreting complex regulations. Moreover, automation lacks the nuanced judgement of human professionals, potentially overlooking grey areas in compliance. There’s also the risk of technological failures or vulnerabilities being exploited. In essence, while automation can boost efficiency, it’s essential to balance it with human oversight to ensure thorough and accurate compliance.

6. Our Interconnected world
All of the five compliance risk areas already highlighted in section above are challenging enough in their own right. However, they are made much more complex and demanding because of the interconnected world ‘village’ that all businesses now operate in. The emerging compliance risks may well have one or more of the following characteristics; the product of their intersecting and often interlocking operations:

• They are susceptible to large scale significant events which may be totally or largely out of their control.
• Risks and rapid evolutions often arise out of global trends that may not match their own current operational environment.
• Events, risks and changes can easily cross geographic borders, industries and sectors. This makes them that much more difficult to predict, quantify or ‘manage’.
• Traditional risk management identification and assessment process may not work in this complex environment.

In our dynamic global landscape, the fluidity of compliance risks remains a compelling challenge for businesses. A proactive approach, marrying technological advancements with robust traditional governance, is vital to navigating this complexity. Companies must be agile, adapting to new regulations whilst retaining core ethical standards. They will need to manage AI effectively, ensuring that it is a tool – not a master, and make successful use of automation only in the context of quality human input and monitoring. The role and scope of compliance undoubtedly continues to grow and evolve in a rapidly changing world.