Managing Trans-border Data Flows

896 Words2 Pages

Managing the flow of data from regional offices, business partners, and customers around the world is an essential component to efficiently conduct business with any large multinational corporation (MNC). Advances in the Internet have allowed companies to more quickly collect accurate data to better coordinate and integrate all geographically dispersed subsidiaries (Sambharya, & Phatak 1990).
Managing Trans-border Data Flows introduces many complex restrictions that corporations must address, which will be discussed in this paper. Additionally this paper will look into the major challenges in managing global telecommunications network as well as what corporations can do to manage international data communications (IDC).
Restrictions of Trans-Border Data Flows and How to Deal with those Restrictions
Trans-border Data Flows (TDF) is the process to move machine-readable data across national boundaries using electronic means for the purpose of storage and processing (Sambharya, & Phatak 1990). Restrictions with TDF can be divided into three main areas: privacy protection, economic issues and national sovereignty considerations (Waples & Norris 1992).
Privacy Protection
Many countries enacted privacy protection laws in the 1970s to protect citizens from the growing ability to store and process personal data (Waples & Norris 1992). These privacy laws can cause major problems with MNCs especially when dealing with sensitive payroll information of employees in different countries. To help in dealing with this issue the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published voluntary guidelines on personal privacy protection and TDF (Waples & Norris 1992). These guidelines addressed: Collection of personal data, security safegu...

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