Global Solution Delivers Additional Tools for Board Members
NEW YORK, May 17, 2012 - Thomson Reuters, the world's leading supplier of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced a number of strategic enhancements to its BoardLink service, a secure board workflow solution designed to serve companies as they operate across borders and have increasingly mobile, global boards.
The boards of public companies today face increased scrutiny from investors, regulators and the media, and so need better tools to perform their jobs. Serving a customer base of leading global companies, user security and data storage as well as functionality for the BoardLink iPad application have all been significantly enhanced. With particular sensitivity to data privacy rules, Thomson Reuters has launched BoardLink's new, wholly-owned European Datacenter, based in Limerick, Ireland, that gives BoardLink customers alternative approaches for data storage for their BoardLink information that avoids the need to export personal data out of Europe to the US.
Concerns about data security and data privacy continue to rise, particularly relating to board documents and communication. A recent Thomson Reuters survey of corporate and company secretaries and general counselors that examined board behavior and board communications illustrated a strategic concern about confidential board communication. Over 80% of respondents indicated that they either did not always encrypt board communications or did not know if they were encrypted at all, while 50% of respondents indicated that they thought that it was likely that members of their board could access board papers on their personal computers or unsecured networks, exposing them to potential theft and hacking.
Through BoardLink organizations can experience market-leading security and the high quality of service necessary for serving the biggest companies and boards around the world. BoardLink data content stored in the European Datacenter is held separately from US-based data content, providing a solution for customers who do not wish their data to be exported to or stored in the US. The datacenter in Limerick is exclusively owned and operated by Thomson Reuters and provides customers with the same high levels of data security as maintained in Thomson Reuters primary US Datacenter.
This latest version of BoardLink includes adaptive authentication, the next step in user authentication security, that utilizes OnePass, Thomson Reuters proprietary access credentials system. Moving to adaptive authentication will allow users to abandon hard and soft log-in tokens and experience greater ease of accessing BoardLink through username, password and security questions while still enjoying the peace of mind provided by market-leading security.
In addition to expanding the BoardLink Datacenter footprint and increasing user authentication security, significant enhancements have also been made to the BoardLink iPad® application. The annotations functionality within the application now includes Free-Draw which allows users to create hand-written notes and references so that users can complete more of their workflow in the BoardLink application and directors to feel more connected to their board materials. Coupled with this, users can now bookmark pages of interest within board books and view summary pages of all bookmarked pages for greater ease-of-use while navigating documents. Additionally, Sticky Log-Ins will now enable users to recall the sign-on method last used by the BoardLink user for swifter, less complicated access.
"Firms' board members and executive management need the ability to access critical information remotely without concern about their online data and how well it is secured," said . "This next iteration of BoardLink brings together all of the capabilities that board members need to access, understand and share their documents and demonstrates the truly global nature of a product that organizations can utilize globally and in local jurisdictions where privacy laws may be particularly strict."
BoardLink is available as part of the Thomson Reuters Accelus suite of products.
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial and risk, legal, tax and accounting, intellectual property and science and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs approximately 60,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges. For more information, go to http://thomsonreuters.com (http://thomsonreuters.com/).
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Source: Thomson Reuters Corporation via Thomson Reuters ONE
