VIDEO | ZL Technologies CEO: Privacy Is Only One Aspect of Governance

(US and Canada) ZL Technologies CEO Kon Leong speaks with Ben Beshear, LiveWell Capital CEO and Northwestern Mutual Private Wealth Advisor, in a video interview about privacy, leveraging AI and ML for better governance, and addressing privacy threats.

Leong states that privacy is one aspect of the governance cycle that every technological advancement goes through. He adds that organizations set mechanisms to control every piece of information to enhance privacy until it gets into the wrong hands. Leong mentions DNA databases as an example for once a technology is out, it requires guardrails to sustain for a long time.

According to Leong, humans will always be the drivers to the benefit or the detriment of the company, and understanding the dynamics of human resources can elevate enterprise performance. He considers both AI and ML to be great contributors, but believes ML benefits more.

Leong points out that organizations use machine learning for empowering unstructured data, sentiment analysis, and body segmentation, which is critical for analytics.

Leong indicates that the true power of technology lies not in the hands of data scientists but the rank and file. For example, he shares that the use of spreadsheets rocketed when it became easy to afford, and that is when individuals discovered different ways to use them. Similarly, he is waiting for analytics to become easy for the rank and file to use.

With a specified timeline and exposed intent, the unstructured domain suffers the impact of leaks and breaches, says Leong. So, he stresses the gravity of being careful since the power that makes unstructured data useful can also be used for nefarious purposes.

Delving deeper, Leong argues that security threats are not external. Highlighting the three As of security: authentication, authorization, and audit trails, he reveals that these defense mechanisms are for external threats. This does not work on internal threats since the triple As are already covered, he says.

To manage the internal threat conversation, ZL Technologies changed its security viewpoint, Leong states. The organization started from the lowest stack by blocking sectors for stored information like network packets and protocols, and the focus has now shifted to the content space, he adds.

Leong reveals that approaches like data leak protection have stopped external threats from accessing the actual content. He concludes that this also helps internal threat detection by flagging sensitive content, observing blips in the natural flow, and setting up an alarm to catch the threat.

CDO Magazine thanks Kon Leong for contributing his thought leadership to our global community.

See more from Kon Leong

Privacy Is Only One Aspect of Governance