By Antoine Bonicalzi

I received a letter in the mail from my bank yesterday. It wasn’t a bill – it was worse. It was a letter informing me that my personal data (name, email, address, phone number, financial habits, etc.) had been leaked in a data breach. Now all my personal information is exposed and potentially in the hands of someone that it shouldn’t be.

As a consumer, this is disturbing news. As a business owner who has been hacked, it can be even more alarming. Unfortunately, in our digital world, data breaches and hacks are only becoming more common. According to Varonis, a cyber attack occurs every 39 seconds with a total average cost of $3.86 million. With statistics like that, business owners need to take a serious look at their data security measures.

In an effort to adhere to PIPEDA, organizations are turning to Canadian servers to store private data and information. As put by hosting company Server Cloud Canada, “rather than follow provincial, federal, and international laws, [when using Canadian servers] you must only adhere to Canadian and provincial privacy laws…Canadian cloud providers have the best knowledge of the country’s privacy laws so they’re in the best position to securely store data from public and private companies.”

As a business owner, you have enough on your plate to worry about. The last thing you need is to be fixated on foreign data privacy laws, and using Canadian cloud providers keeps things simple and straightforward. Plus, most Canadian cloud providers are already GDPR compliant, for organizations looking to do business overseas.

But having your data stored in Canada comes with benefits beyond compliance.

Having your contacts’ data in Canada is about more than just complying with the different legislation, but it’s also about peace if mind. If you send personal data to another country, that data is now under that country’s privacy law. For example, not everyone likes the fact that their personal information can be accessed by the American government so being able to tell your customers that their data is stored in Canada can be a competitive edge.

When it comes to your marketing, you’re able to promote messaging that your competitors might not be able to. You can build your strategy around the fact that you take privacy seriously through concrete steps and that you’re actively taking steps towards protecting them – “rest assured, your personal information stays protected in Canada.” Data privacy and security are hot topics that will continue to be important issues moving forward, both when it comes to new legislation, as well the way consumers see your company and its willingness to address their concerns

Sending emails from Canadian servers may yield better results for your direct campaigns, such as better delivery and open rates. In some sensitive industries, like finance, , strict spam filters do not allow emails sent from outside of Canada into the inbox. Sending from Canadian servers could help keep your newsletters and drip campaigns in the right folder!

Antoine Bonicalzi is the marketing director at email marketing platform Cyberimpact.