Companies had to adapt by reforming their operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring that employees stay safe while maintaining business continuity. Due to this, significant changes were made to facilitate the organization’s communication as many workers are forced to work off-site. 

Fortunately, the advancement of digital communication technologies enabled companies to utilize digital communication tools such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Cisco WebEx for remote collaboration. Accordingly, employees prefer using secure instant messaging solutions like WhatsApp, Signal, WeChat, and Telegram to communicate with colleagues and clients as they are convenient and easy to use.

However, the increased use of instant messaging solutions can pose multiple legal risks for companies related to compliance. Understanding the threat of digital communication technologies’ growth in regulated firms has motivated regulatory bodies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to amend the existing compliance rules and introduce new ones covering the requirements of hybrid working models. 

Regulators expect registered firms to comply further by improving their current efforts for modern digital communication technologies by implementing archiving solutions, including WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, and Verizon SMS archiving solutions.

Unfortunately, some organizations still fail to address their lack of secure archiving and monitoring of employees’ communication despite regulation changes. As a result, the SEC focused on communication compliance by imposing compliance rules like call and Verizon text archiving and their appropriate consequences if violated. 

Both SEC and FINRA and other regulatory bodies worldwide are responsible for regulating how businesses monitor and record employee communication. With the growing number of digital communication technologies and their users, regulatory bodies continuously assess their impact and update compliance requirements to minimize risks. 

Companies must understand that robust monitoring and archival solutions do more than prevent them from facing any legal consequences. Archives or stored communications data can also serve as business intelligence and knowledge repository. 

For more information about SEC focus on communication compliance, read this infographic from TeleMessage.