IT trade association Intellect has warned businesses which adopt an outsourcing strategy to take care to ensure that data is secure. If not, they risk a breach that may lead to regulatory action and to a loss in customer confidence, according to a newly published report called "Intellect Data Security and Data Protection: Guidelines for Offshoring and Outsourcing."

Speaking about the launch of the report to Computer World UK, Bridget Treacy was quoted saying: "Often people don't know where to start with data protection, or how to start. But if customers don't think about data protection early enough it can become very costly."

Treacy is a partner in the firm's Global Sourcing and Privacy practices. Based in London, she has an extensive background in technology law, with a particular focus on outsourcing transactions and the increasingly complex data flows which form an essential part of them. Treacy advises on all aspects of data protection compliance including international data transfers (Model Clauses, Safe Harbor and BCRs), devising global compliance programmes and structuring pragmatic solutions to data issues.