Data Protection – Online Income Tax Refund Service

Time to Read: 18 minutes

At Daily Tax LLC, an affiliate of aataxescorp, our technology policies are structured around safeguarding standards, reducing and mitigating risk, and complying with various regulatory requirements to ensure all interested parties’ integrity and confidentiality are protected. Within our environment, we suggest that we all defend ourselves against malicious actors. We do not promote intentional harm to digital devices and systems. To avoid mistakes, it is important for us to disclose a reminder of our behavior that impacts cyber connections. Our entire being processes information each second, causing sensitivities to stress and impulsivity. Multi-tasking has experienced a fading effect. A distracted mind is at higher risk. It is important to organize and complete tasks when there is no threat and navigating through information is performed with conscious awareness.

The security summit implemented a language sample plan for professionals, and that is mindfulness. Tax professionals use management, training, information systems, and system failure detection to understand cyber responsibility. Our site is easy to navigate and presents information that is valuable for a balanced life.

We encourage mobile, tablet, and all computer device users to understand the large language model of legal compliance. We are all equally working towards improving our ecosystem (external and internal). The blueprint for internet safety is to acknowledge high traffic times throughout the day and year and use those recognized times as a measure to unplug, clear browsing and internet activity, reset passwords, and enable multiple-step authenticators. We have tested both online and physical markets to determine whether high-trafficked places provoke emotions and impose harm. Please be respectful of the scheduled time and its limit. We have a duty to each other to refrain from rushing through important life requirements. We are also equally bombarded with content, and the average mobile device user emotionally responds to short coding, limited sentence structure, acronyms, and other character maximums. Which makes communication at times a challenge.

The suggested course of action is to enroll in and successfully complete a cybersecurity course annually. Continuing education is our largest attribute of humanity. In brief, cybersecurity is defined as an individual’s ability to follow instructions and add value. Preventative measures include passwords and authentication, as previously mentioned. As systems merge, information and content become vulnerable and easily interpreted. Mobile devices are soundboards; connect with your internet service provider to ensure at-home internet security works jointly with your mobility as you commute and connect throughout the day. The best practice is to close all browsers, perform a clearing of internet browsing history, and hard reset if you plan to remain at an establishment for more than one hour. Data scientists remain in development roles to match our need for internet connections through hardwire and transparent connectivity. We are sharing our time with multiple languages and interpretations, and how we respond must be a well-managed process. Remember to clear and monitor Bluetooth names and settings on permanent and temporary electronic devices regularly.

Trust is crucial when it comes to personal information. Mistakes are recognizable and allow individuals to prioritize their lives. Keep in mind that it took on average 52, 26, or 24 payroll cycles to collect tax payments through wages. We are working hard each day. When you consider work performance, personal responsibilities, and vacations, we are constantly meeting the expectation of having a diverse and welcoming human nature. We all come into the workforce under new and improved guidance. Changes in employment type and placement present risk and momentarily alter retirement plan portfolios. We work hard to utilize trusted practice management systems and design a business flow that allows individuals to read, review, and process information within a secure environment. Being compliant during technological changes requires first having a sense of awareness. We take time throughout the day to verify identities, examine complicated requests, and protect the digital information that the person provided and exchanged through our tax practice as a return preparer.

To ensure data security, it is moral to add two-step identification and update passwords frequently. A different and unique password is required for all systems where your user profile is needed or requested. Data exploitation is not part of our business practice, and we ask that individuals understand and refrain from attempting to disrupt the manner in which business is conducted. We are a return preparer entity that outlines, organizes, plans, and resolves US-based individual tax refund submissions and concerns. As an individual working and operating a service business, tax refunds are often a means of clearing, consolidating, or building a savings and retirement plan. You have the right to save for retirement due to inflation and the plan for care and support as it relates to day-to-day living through the aging effect.

We are a practice that verifies the identity provided and safely stores the information in encryption for one year from the date of service. We keep in mind that many licenses and registrations meet an expiration date within any year (traditionally ten years from the date of validation and date of issue), and it is usually relevant for businesses to retain business transactions (meetings and service agreements) for proper financial statement reporting at the close of that year.

Written Information Security Plan

1. Purpose.
This WISP aims to protect the security, confidentiality, integrity, and availability of personal and sensitive information held by aataxescorp. It protects against potential threats, unauthorized access, and a suitable information security program based on aataxescorp’s size, scope, business resources, and information volume.

2. Scope.

This WISP applies to [all aataxescorp employees, contractors, executives, and directors]. It applies to any records containing personal [or other sensitive] information in any format or medium, whether electronic or paper. (a) “Personal information” means a US resident’s first and last name or first initial and last name in combination with any one or more of the following data elements, or any of the following data elements standing alone or in combination, if such data elements could be used to commit identity theft against the individual: (i) Social Security number; (ii) driver’s license number, other government-issued identification number, such as passport number, or tribal identification number. (iii) Account number, or credit or debit card number, with or without any required security code, access code, personal identification number, or password that would allow access to the individual’s financial account [GLBA: or any personally identifiable financial information or consumer list, description, or other grouping derived from personally identifiable financial information, where personally identifiable financial information includes any information: (A) A conspicuous conspicuous conspicuous conspicuous conspicuous conspicuous conspicuous (iv) [Health information, including information [regarding the individual’s medical history or mental or physical condition, or medical treatment or diagnosis by a health care professional/created or received by aataxescorp]/ [HIPAA: , which identifies or for which there is a reasonable basis to believe the information can be used to identify the individual and which relates to the past, present, or future physical or mental health or condition of the individual, the provision of health care to the individual, or payment for the provision of health care to the individual]]; (v) Health insurance identification number, subscriber identification number, or other unique identifier used by a health insurer; (vi) Biometric data collected from the individual and used to authenticate the individual during a transaction, such as an image of a fingerprint, retina, or iris; or (vii) Email address with any required security code, access code, or password that would permit access to an individual’s personal, medical, insurance, or financial account. (b) Personal information does not include lawfully obtained information that is publicly available, such as information from federal, state, or local government records. [ (c) “Sensitive information” means data that: (i) aataxescorp deems to be highly confidential information; or (ii) if accessed or released to unauthorized parties, might cause significant or serious harm to aataxescorp, its customers, or its business partners. (iii) Sensitive data includes, but is not limited to, personal data. [See the information classification privacy policy of aataxescorp.

3. Information Security Coordinator

aataxescorp has selected [Daily Tax, LLC] as the “Information Security Coordinator” to implement, coordinate, and maintain this WISP. The Information Security Coordinator shall be responsible for: (a) Initial implementation of this WISP, including: (i) Assessing internal and external risks to personal [and other sensitive] information and maintaining related documentation, including risk assessment reports and remediation plans (see Section 4); (ii) Coordinating the development, distribution, and maintenance of information security policies and procedures (see Section 5); (iii) Coordinating the design of reasonable and appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect personal [and other sensitive] information (see Section 6); (iv) Ensuring that the safeguards are implemented and maintained to protect personal [and other sensitive] information throughout aataxescorp, where applicable (see Section 6); (v) Overseeing service providers that access or maintain personal [and other sensitive] information on behalf of aataxescorp (see Section 7); (vi) Monitoring and testing the information security program’s implementation and effectiveness on an ongoing basis (see Section 8); (vii) Defining and managing incident response procedures (see Section 9); and (viii) Establishing and managing enforcement policies and procedures for this WISP, in collaboration with aataxescorp human resources and management (see Section 10). (b) Hiring qualified information security people, which includes: (i) providing them with security updates and enough training to address relevant risks; and (ii) ensuring that they take steps to retain current information security expertise. (c) Employee, contractor, and (as applicable) stakeholder training, including: (i) providing periodic training on this WISP, aataxescorp’s safeguards, and relevant information security policies and procedures to all employees, contractors, and (as applicable) stakeholders who have or may have access to personal [or other sensitive] information, updated as needed or indicated by aataxescorp’s risk assessment activities (see Section 4); (ii) ensuring that traini (d) Reviewing this WISP and the security measures defined here at least once a year, or more frequently if indicated by aataxescorp’s risk assessment (see Section 4) or program monitoring and testing activities (see Section 8), or whenever there is a material change in aataxescorp’s business practices that may reasonably jeopardize the security, confidentiality, integrity, or availability of records containing personal [or other sensitive] information (see Section 11). (e) Establishing and administering an exceptions process to examine, approve or deny, document, monitor, and reassess any necessary and reasonable business-driven requests for deviations from this WISP’s or aataxescorp’s information security policies and procedures. (f) Periodically[, but at least annually], reporting to aataxescorp’s [management/Board of Directors] [in writing] on the status of the information security program and aataxescorp’s safeguards to protect personal [and other sensitive] information[, including the program’s overall status, compliance with applicable laws and regulations, material matters related to the program, such as risk assessment, risk management and control decisions, service provider arrangements, and service provider performance].

4. Risk Assessment.

Aataxescorp will conduct and base its information security program on a periodic, documented risk assessment at least annually, or whenever there is a material change in aataxescorp’s business practices that may jeopardize the security, confidentiality, integrity, or availability of records containing personal [or other sensitive] information]. (a) The risk assessment shall: (i) identify reasonably foreseeable internal and external risks to the security, confidentiality, integrity, or availability of any electronic, paper, or other records containing personal [or other sensitive] information, and include criteria for evaluating and categorizing those identified risks; (ii) define assessment criteria and assess the likelihood and potential damage that could result from such risks, including unauthorized disclosure; and (iii) define assessment criteria and assess the likelihood and potential damage that could result from such risks, including the (B) Employee, contractor, and (as applicable) stakeholder compliance with this WISP and related policies and procedures; (C) Information systems acquisition, design, implementation, operations, and maintenance, as well as data processing, storage, transmission, retention, and disposal; and (D) aataxescorp’s ability to prevent, detect, and respond to attacks, intrusions, and other security incidents or system failures. (b) Following each risk assessment, aataxescorp will: (i) design, implement, and maintain reasonable and appropriate safeguards to minimize identified risks; (ii) address any identified gaps in a reasonable and appropriate manner, including documenting aataxescorp’s plan to remediate, mitigate, accept, or transfer identified risks, as appropriate; and (iii) regularly monitor the effectiveness of aataxescorp’s safeguards, as specified in this WISP (see Section 8).

5. Information Security Policies and Procedures

As part of this WISP, aataxescorp will develop, maintain, and distribute information security policies and procedures to relevant employees, contractors, and (as applicable) other stakeholders in accordance with applicable laws and standards in order to: (a) establish policies regarding (i) information classification; (ii) information handling practices for personal [and other sensitive] information, including storage, access, disposal, and external transfer or transportation (iii) User access management, including identification and authentication (via passwords or other appropriate means); (iv) encryption; (v) computer and network security; (vi) physical security; (vii) incident reporting and response; (viii) employee and contractor technology use, including Acceptable Use and Bring Your Own Device to Work (BYOD); and (ix) acquisition, development, operation, and maintenance of information systems. (b) Describe how aataxescorp’s administrative, technical, and physical safeguards are implemented and maintained (see Section 6).

6. Safeguards.

Aataxescorp will develop, implement, and maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards in accordance with applicable laws and standards to protect the security, confidentiality, integrity, and availability of personal [or other sensitive] information it owns or maintains on behalf of third parties. (a) Safeguards must be proportional to aataxescorp’s size, scope, and operations, as well as its available resources and the quantity of personal [and other sensitive] information it owns or maintains on behalf of others, while recognizing the need to secure both customer and employee information. (b) Aataxescorp must include documentation of its administrative, technological, and physical safeguards in its information security policies and procedures (see Section 5). [ Administrative safeguards for aataxescorp must include, at a minimum: (i) designating one or more employees to coordinate the information security program (see Section 3); and (ii) identifying reasonably foreseeable internal and external risks and assessing whether existing safeguards adequately control the identified risks (see Section 4). (iii) Training employees in security program practices and procedures, with management oversight (refer to Section 3); (iv) Selecting service providers capable of maintaining appropriate safeguards and requiring service providers to maintain safeguards by contract (refer to Section 7); and (v) Modifying the information security program in response to business changes or new circumstances (refer to Section 11). (d) aataxescorp’s technical safeguards shall include the maintenance of a security system encompassing its network (including wireless capabilities) and computers that, at a minimum and to the maximum extent technically feasible, supports: (i) Secure user authentication methods, which include (A) managing user identification and authentication with a reasonably secure means of assigning and selecting passwords (ensuring that passwords are stored in a place or format that is not readily accessible to unauthorized users); and (B) managing user identification and authentication (ii) Secure access control measures, including (A) limiting access to records and files containing personal [or other sensitive] information to those who need to know in order to perform their duties; and (B) assigning unique identifiers and passwords (or other authentication means, but not vendor-supplied default passwords) to each individual with computer or network access, which are designed to maintain security. (iii) Encryption of all personal [or other sensitive] data traveling wirelessly or across public networks; (iv) Encryption of all personal [or other sensitive] data stored on laptops or other portable or mobile devices [, as well as personal [or other sensitive] data stored on any other device or media (data-at-rest)] (vii) Reasonably current system security software (or a version that can still be supported with reasonable effort). (e) Aataxescorp’s physical safeguards must at a minimum consist of the following: (i) defining and implementing reasonable physical security measures to protect areas where personal [or other sensitive] information may be accessed; (ii) preventing, detecting, and responding to intrusions or unauthorized access to personal [or other sensitive] information. (c) (i) implementing and periodically reviewing technical and, as appropriate, physical access controls to: (A) authenticate and permit access to personal [and other sensitive] information only to authorized users; and (B) limit authorized users’ access only to personal [and other sensitive] information they need to perform their duties and functions, or, in the case of customers, to access their own personal information. (iii) Encrypting personal [and other sensitive] information held by aataxescorp when it is at rest or in transit over external networks, unless aataxescorp determines that doing so is currently infeasible for its circumstances and the information security coordinator reviews and approves effective compensating controls under aataxescorp’s exceptions process (see Section 3(e)); (iv) Adopting secure development practices for internally developed applications and procedures for evaluating, assessing, or testing the security of externally developed applications that aataxescorp uses to transmit, access, or store personal [or other sensitive] information; (v) Implementing multifactor authentication for individuals accessing personal [or other sensitive] information or systems that handle personal [or other sensitive] information unsupervised; (vi) Developing, implementing, and maintaining procedures for securely disposing of personal [and other sensitive] information in any format, including: (A) Disposing of customers’ personal information no later than two years after the last date aataxescorp uses it for providing a product or service to the relevant customer, unless it is required for business operations or other legitimate business purposes, retention is otherwise required by law, or targeted disposal is conducted. (vii) Implementing rules, processes, and controls to monitor and register the activities of authorized users and detect their unauthorized access, use, or modification of personal [or other sensitive] data.

7. Service Provider Oversight

aataxescorp will monitor each of its service providers who may have access to or otherwise create, collect, use, or maintain personal [or other sensitive] information on its behalf by: (a) assessing the service provider’s ability to implement and maintain appropriate security measures that are consistent with this WISP, all applicable laws, and aataxescorp’s obligations. (b) By contract, requiring the service provider to establish and maintain adequate security measures that are compliant with this WISP, all relevant laws, and aataxescorp’s commitments. (c) Monitoring and reviewing the service provider’s performance on a regular basis to ensure compliance with this WISP and all applicable laws and aataxescorp’s obligations.

8. Monitoring.

9. Incident Response

aataxescorp shall develop and implement written rules and procedures for responding to information security incidents (see Section 5). These procedures must include: [ (a) Documenting the reaction to any security incident or event involving a security breach. (b) Conducting a post-incident analysis of events and actions taken. (c) Addressing any identified deficiencies in a reasonable and acceptable manner. / GLBA: (a) Defining the following: (i) the incident response plan’s goals; (ii) aataxescorp’s incident response processes; (iii) roles, duties, and levels of decision-making power; and (iv) internal and external communications and information sharing mechanisms. (b) Identifying remedial needs to remedy any detected flaws in aataxescorp’s systems and processes. (c) Documenting and reporting information security incidents and aataxescorp’s response operations appropriately. (b) Conducting post-incident reviews and modifying the plan as needed

10. Enforcement.

Violations of this WISP will result in disciplinary action in accordance with aataxescorp’s information security and human resources standards. Please visit [REFERENCE TO HR POLICIES] for more information on aataxescorp’s disciplinary procedure.

11. Program Review

When indicated by aataxescorp’s risk assessment (see Section 4) or program monitoring and testing activities (see Section 8), or whenever there is a material change in aataxescorp’s business practices that may reasonably implicate the security, confidentiality, integrity, or availability of records containing personal [or other sensitive] information, aataxescorp will review this WISP and the security measures defined herein at least annually. (a) aataxescorp shall keep records of any such program evaluation, including any identified gaps and action plans.

12. Effective Date

This WISP goes into effect on October 12th, 2023. (a) Revision History: [none at this time]