The Risks and Benefits of Slack in Financial Services

Slack surpassed the 12 million user mark in 2020, with new accounts surging as more companies embrace remote work. The platform is one of the top business communication apps for industries across the board, including the heavily-regulated financial sector. This guide will explore the benefits and challenges of Slack as a tool for digital collaboration in banking and financial services.

Pagefreezer recently conducted a research study in the United Kingdom (UK) that examined higher education providers’ responsibilities related to marketing and consumer rights — specifically as they are outlined in the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA’s) guidance document, UK higher education providers: advice on consumer protection law (CMA 33).

There’s no doubt that a tool like Slack can improve communication and collaboration within a company—but it also introduces certain legal and compliance risks. Just ask luggage company Away.

Web archiving is simply the act of collecting and preserving websites in an archive. It's the best way to capture website content in an immutable and time-stamped form that facilitates compliance, litigation, and overall information governance.  

Back in June, Pagefreezer’s CEO Michael Riedijk posted our Stance on Racism. In that post we made the following promises:

Digital content (like web pages, Facebook posts, and tweets) is increasingly being submitted as evidence during legal matters—but it isn’t always being admitted by courts. As with any other form of evidence, digital evidence needs to meet a certain standard in order to be deemed admissible—and in many cases this comes down to how the evidence was collected and authenticated. If the collection and authentication process wasn’t handled correctly—and the method employed didn’t prove authenticity beyond any reasonable doubt—the evidence typically would not be accepted.

In a previous article, we discussed why hash values are crucial in evidence collection and digital forensics. Following on from that, it’s worth discussing why Pagefreezer specifically makes use of the SHA-256 hashing algorithm when applying a digital signature to one of our records.

Traditionally, proving the authenticity of a piece of digital evidence could be tricky, especially if opposing counsel was determined to keep it out of evidence. Legal teams would have no other option than to spend significant time and resources on providing a sponsoring witness who could testify to the authenticity. 

We’ve mentioned before how important information governance is. However, with the sudden shift to remote work caused by COVID-19, having thorough systems and processes in place to manage information has proven more important than ever. 

2020 has undoubtedly been a tough year, with government social media use having higher stakes than ever before. Yet, despite all the challenges, most government organizations continue to do great work on social media—leveraging social platforms to not only provide crucial information and help citizens deal with current issues, but also shine a spotlight on actions and events that are worthy of celebration.