A higher level of compliance company wide for United Remote, as evidenced by its impending ISO 27001 certification, should result in “improved customer and business partner confidence” for the fast-growing content aggregator.
Billed as a “final step” in United Remote’s big data game, which includes increased reliability and security of information, the bid for ISO 27001 certification is being led by Andreas Rauer – the company’s new head of information security and internal audit.
Rauer, brought in to complete a project started by United Remote’s head of legal and DPO Dr. Serafino Vaccino, has spent the last 15 years as a security consultant working across multiple jurisdictions from Sweden to Malta, and extensively in Germany as part of xiv-consult GmbH, where he was head of compliance and data-security.
He has also had major stints as a consultant on strategic information security with TÜV Rheinland i-sec GmbH and at HiSolutions AG.
The on-going work on the ISO 27001 certification demonstrates that United Remote has identified the risks, assessed the implications and put in place systemised controls that increase reliability and security of systems and information. The result, said the company, should be improved customer and business partner confidence.
Vaccino said: “An ISO 27001 is underway to have the right certification in place and make sure that what we say is actually put into practice. This makes the difference. Everyone is cooperating and has understood the point, so it’s going very well.
“We have covered everything: business intelligence, payment providers, KYC, responsible gaming, transaction histories, hosting, communications, CRM, gamification providers, we have left no stone unturned.”
Vaccino began by mapping the data flow, how it was managed and for which purposes, while scoping not just activities where there is the processing of data in general but also asking ‘why’. Scoping was the first step along with drafting all the relevant documents, both for company policies and procedures but also taking into account external stakeholders.
By Q2 this year, United Remote had started implementing a culture that takes into account stakeholder interests including security, servers and data centres, and sub processors used. The supply chain is carefully vetted, while this ‘in-depth assessment’ also includes countries where there are safeguards on data protection and the protection of player data rights.
United Remote has put into place the right form of contracts and agreements, and the right policies and procedures, while Vaccino has taken a proactive role in advising the development side of the business what to do with the data.
This is strategically important, stressed the company, in terms of reshaping the business culture, especially when the development teams want to make partnerships with certain providers – making them aware that each set of data has to be sent with a valid reason for a valid purpose and that there is no one size fits all in this regard.
The resulting documents and procedures – even pre the ISO 27001 award – have helped United Remote to reach a point of high-level compliance company wide.
This all sums up the focus of change in the past 12 months at United Remote, which has been to bring new measures, new documentation related to privacy and data.
The long term strategy for Jeremy Fall, United Remote CEO, is to make it a sustainable business with robust legal and data compliance, as well as going the extra mile to outreach beyond those requirements into a variety of communities whether on the supply side or on the technology side or, indeed, on the marketing side.
Fall said: “With Serafino and Andreas working together to further improve our data management and bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to our technology base and to the evaluation and improvement of the effectiveness of risk management, control and governance processes, we are confident that we have taken a step to the next level and look forward to sharing these organic improvements with the igaming community.”
United Remote is a rapidly-growing aggregator, having assembled a differentiated portfolio of over 2000 games to complement its own in-house titles.