It’s a new year, and everyone is making resolutions. But perhaps the most important resolution you can make this year is to protect everyone, even your employees or third party service providers, from identity theft.

PricewaterhouseCoopers released its sixth annual Global State of Information Security Survey 2008, announcing that businesses nationwide have implemented double-digit advances in new security technologies, but the focus of most businesses is on the technology itself rather than its security value.

PWC also said that more than half of surveyed businesses indicated that they do not have an accurate inventory of where personal data for employees and customers is even collected, much less transmitted or stored. About 51% of financial services respondents said that they do not require third party service providers to comply with company privacy policies.

Furthermore, most companies are interested primarily on protecting customer data — which is all well and good, if you have little to no concern for your employees. The survey indicates, “When security breaches occurred, financial services respondents indicated that employee records were just as likely as customer records to be affected.” Also, only 59% of firms indicated that they require data encryption on databases, file shares, and backup tapes. On top of that, 33% of companies do not use laptop encryption.

What this means for all you business owners out there is that your business is not as safe as it could potentially be, and not only your data is at risk: your employees are also at high risk.

Certainly, steps need to be taken to ensure employee information is stored properly, and that data is well-encrypted. Importantly, though, is that in an increasingly “mobile” workforce, laptops need to be protected. A simple encryption is the difference between secure data storage and the complete destruction of a company from the bottom up.

Think about it. Encrypt those laptops. And if you’re not about to go all out and have the tech people in your building encrypt everything, at least be equipped with technology like MyLaptopGPS data retrieval and laptop recovery. It’s the least you can do to protect your company, and your employees, from harm.