What Is Compliance Monitoring for Remote Developers?

Compliance monitoring involves tracking remote employee activities to ensure they follow the rules and regulations set forth by companies and the industry. While most developers remain productive and conscientious in a work-from-home role, a few might abuse the privilege and cause harm to the entire organization — even inadvertently. 

Monitoring a remote workforce from day one helps businesses identify any problem issues and address them before they get out of hand. Companies can also note bottlenecks and ways to improve processes. Some industries must adhere to strict rules or risk fines and penalties. Monitoring ensures remote workers follow the guidelines.

Fortunately, several compliance monitoring measures are straightforward. 

1. Create Policies

Adhering to the rules of the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF) agreement will help companies trade data effectively. The idea is that each brand will afford protection for personal information without the burden of filling out forms. Since 80%-90% of data is currently unstructured, the DPF gives companies more freedom.

However, businesses must be aware of the potential for abuse and create policies to protect the personal data of employees and clients. Anytime an employee shares details outside of the organization, you risk exposing your customers to cybercriminals. Creating strong policies protects the brand's reputation. 

2. Establish Regulation Oversight

Most companies have a person overseeing compliance and ensuring the brand keeps up with regulations. Each year, laws change, new standards emerge, and knowing what must be changed to remain above reproach requires hours of study. 

Appoint a person or team to oversee remote developers and their methods. Establishing rules and ensuring everyone is on the same page is easier when the directives come from a specified individual. Depending on the size of a company, someone may be able to oversee general compliance as well as from home-based workers.

3. Beef Up Security

During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, more people began working from home. The increase in remote workers also brought forward more cyberattacks attempting to gain access to proprietary information and personal data. In a survey, around 23% of respondents indicated the number of cybersecurity incidents increased since they started working from home. 

One way to ensure remote developer machines have the latest security is by providing equipment and installing virus protection and firewalls via your IT department. Consider the most likely attacks on your databases and add the necessary applications to prevent breaches.

You might also invest in monitoring. With advances in machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) can track behaviors and spot patterns that might indicate a cyberattack. AI can then block the IP address initiating the attack and implement additional security measures. 

For industries where data protection is crucial, such as health care or military contracted work, using advanced techniques ensures the brand keeps its lucrative contracts and protects information. 

4. Check for Weak Points

For complete compliance monitoring, brands must check for weak points and strengthen them as part of routine measures. Test systems regularly, particularly if workers use their own machines to access the cloud. 

Brands can even hire teams of skilled hackers to test their databases and employees and determine where bad players might gain access to the system. 

5. Train Employees

The effort you put into training developers to protect data makes a huge impact on keeping data private and complying with regulations. The most frequently reported cybercrime is phishing, where cybercriminals trick the user into sharing login credentials via a link or other communication. 

Invest time and effort into training remote workers to spot a phishing attack. Establish policies where they must go directly to a site and never click on an email link. Let them know that requests for passwords, resets, and other sensitive information will always come via a phone call from a particular person rather than in an email or direct message.

The clearer a brand is with policies, the less likely a chance for cyberthieves to take over information that should be protected. 

Balancing Compliance With Employee Privacy

Complying with laws and regulations is crucial to avoiding penalties for a breach of privacy situation. Organizations have a responsibility to protect the sensitive data developers work with. The best policy is establishing clear lines of communication. Explain the reasoning for new rules or monitoring. When everyone on the team works together toward compliance, the brand, customers, and workers benefit.