Theta Lake Blog

Stacey English

Stacey English
25 years'​ regulatory risk, compliance, audit and regtech experience within global financial services, regulators and technology providers. A Chartered Certified accountant with the highest results worldwide. Holds the Chartered Insurance Institute’s Certificate in Financial Planning, completed the Oxford Artificial Intelligence Programme through Saïd Business School and has first class degrees in BSc (Hons) Applied Accounting and BA (Hons) Business Administration. A Member of the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments, the Personal Finance Society and the Chartered Insurance Institute. An Honorary Fellow of Cambridge Judge Business School - Cambridge Centre For Alternative Finance.
Find me on:

Recent Posts

2023 Regulatory Priorities from SEC & FINRA: Key Takeaways for Compliant Communications

Posted by Stacey English on Feb 16, 2023 7:52:57 AM

At a Glance

Both the SECand FINRAhave announced their examination priorities for 2023 giving investment advisers and broker dealers important insight into the areas to include in their compliance monitoring plans. For those tasked with maintaining compliance, security and data privacy across an organization’s unified communications there are specific areas to focus on to ensure the continuing deployment and use of platforms meet regulatory expectations, including:

Read More

2022 Modern Communications Compliance and Security Report

Posted by Stacey English on Oct 27, 2022 9:47:01 AM

Theta Lake has published its fourth annual survey report on modern communications compliance and security, highlighting the complex challenges faced by those tasked with maintaining compliance, security and data privacy. The report is based on the views and experiences of more than 500 compliance and security professionals from the heavily-regulated financial services, healthcare and government sectors across the U.S., the U.K. and Canada. It provides a snapshot of how communication platforms are being used and the issues organizations are struggling with, enabling them to benchmark their own practices and expectations against the wider industry, identifying any gaps or areas of exposure they may have.

Read More

Topics: compliance, data leakage, zoom, Microsoft Teams, record-keeping, communications, WhatsApp, SMS, archiving

Regulatory Perspectives From Theta Lake

Posted by Stacey English on Oct 3, 2022 6:45:00 AM

How to Comply With the New CMS Communications and Marketing Requirements for Medicare Advantage and Part D Conversations

New recording, disclosure, and compliance rules

New electronic communications recording, disclosure, and oversight rules from the Centers for Medicare &Medicaid Services (“CMS”), effective 1 October 2022, highlight the heightened scrutiny around the sale of complex healthcare products, to promote transparency and protect consumers.  In a digital age where prospects are bombarded with telemarketing calls, online advertising, social media, and promotions from celebrities and influencers, it’s more important than ever that they receive accurate information about sophisticated products.  Clarity is particularly critical when it relates to the purchase of essential healthcare services.

The new CMS rules can be viewed as part of a broader global trend toward increased disclosure for complex healthcare, financial, or insurance products directly marketed to customers.  Complaints about misleading advertising and sales of Medicare Advantage (“MA”) plans and Part D were the key catalyst for the CMS regulatory updates.  In the one year period between 2020 and 2021 the number of complaints submitted to CMS soared from less than 16,000 to over 39,000 – a staggering increase.

Read More

Topics: compliance, healthcare, record-keeping, electronic communications, archiving

10 Predictions for 2022: Communications, Collaboration, and Compliance

Posted by Stacey English on Dec 15, 2021 9:04:45 AM

The last two years have brought tremendous change, forcing us all to adapt and adopt technology, processes, and initiatives to stay connected virtually in an era where live interaction has been mostly restricted. The communication and collaboration market was front and center in making this possible.

Read More

Topics: compliance, predictions, surveillance, electronic communications, communications, collaboration

Evidence & Audit Trails - The Compliance Challenges of Modern Communications

Posted by Stacey English on Sep 14, 2021 11:17:04 AM

Collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Webex Teams, RingCentral and Slack have become integral to how we work.  With multiple ways to communicate and collaborate they’re vital for keeping workforces and customers connected whether remote, hybrid or office based.  And with less and less physical in-person interaction, users are making use of the rich features to liaise and share information.  Not least by adding personality and emotion with emojis, reactions and GIFs.  But modern communications create compliance challenges when it comes to providing evidence and proof that is so often required for regulatory, HR, litigation or complaints resolution issues.

Read More

Topics: compliance, chat compliance, record-keeping, financial services, evidence

Who’s going back to the office?

Posted by Stacey English on Aug 4, 2021 5:15:00 AM

It’s a straightforward question.  With a complex answer.

Read More

Topics: compliance, data loss, monitoring, return to work

Supervision & surveillance: 10 tips to keep regulators and staff happy

Posted by Stacey English on Jul 28, 2021 4:30:00 AM

Financial services firms have long used technology to supervise the communications and activities of employees, to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and be able to detect issues such as market abuse, mis-selling or data privacy. It’s a key control for meeting regulatory obligations including MiFID II,  CFTC, FINRA, IIROC and GDPR and a standard feature of working in a regulated industry. Likewise data loss prevention tools are commonplace across businesses to reduce the risks of data loss and exposure.  All designed to protect consumers, employees, and shareholders.  

Read More

Topics: compliance, data leakage, data loss, supervision, record-keeping, surveillance, monitoring

Public Records Requests: The challenge of identifying data within modern communications

Posted by Stacey English on Jul 14, 2021 9:30:00 AM

As state and local government employees use collaboration and chat tools such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Cisco Webex, RingCentral and Slack to interact with each other and the public, the ability to search the full range of communications and content is critical.   Whether it's a shared screen, whiteboard or chat conversation, government organizations must be able to quickly identify information about a specific individual or topic to meet public records requests. The legacy technology tools that agencies use to perform basic keyword searches on email, SMS, or social media content are insufficient in the era of collaboration and dynamic chat. State and local governments must ensure that their platforms for search, retrieval, and management of data align to the new applications employees are using for day-to-day business interactions. 

Hear how Theta Lake addresses these issues with a solution built to solve state and local government challenges:

 

Read More

Topics: chat compliance, state & local government

Why Modern Chat is a Challenge for Email Archives and DLP Tools

Posted by Stacey English on Jun 30, 2021 6:30:00 AM

The rapidly increasing use of chat in modern work-from-anywhere workplaces has exposed new compliance, privacy, and security risks. Not least the need to comply with regulatory obligations for retention, supervision, privacy and security mandated by regulators worldwide.

Read More

Topics: compliance, chat compliance

Misconduct In Chat – The Risks And How To Reduce Them

Posted by Stacey English on Jun 23, 2021 8:27:58 AM

Billions of dollars in fines and rising

Nearly half a billion dollars in fines announced by the European Commission for trading cartels involving ten global banks is a stark reminder of the challenges firms face in monitoring chat and instant messages to detect misconduct. Communications in chat rooms enabled the sharing of commercially sensitive information to go undetected for several years.

Read More

Topics: chat compliance, regtech

Comment Here
Content not found

Theta Lake provides security and compliance for modern collaboration platforms using frictionless partner integrations with Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, RingCentral, Slack, Zoom, and more. Using patented machine learning and NLP, Theta Lake detects risks in: video, voice, chat, and document content across what is shared, shown, spoken, and typed. Those risks are surfaced in an AI-assisted, patent-pending review workspace that adds consistency, efficiency, and scale for security and compliance teams. All of this enables organizations to safely realize the full ROI of a collaboration-first workplace while reducing the cost of security and compliance.

www.thetalake.com

Subscribe here to stay up to date!