Chicago, Ill. (March 21, 2011) – Tech Lock, Inc. announces the joining of Stephens & Michaels Associates, Inc. (SMA) to its Tech Lock Certified™ program. Tech Lock Certified™ is a holistic compliance assessment, performed by certified security professionals with over 20 years of security and IT management experience supporting ARM industry organizations. Tech Lock Certified™ combines multiple regulatory and industry standard control objectives into a single assessment to provide agencies and service providers cost savings while meeting organizational and client security requirements.

“Data security and the protection of consumer information is one of our top priorities,” says Marc Pellegrini, SMA Executive Vice President. “In our decision process it was important for us to find a partner that had industry experience and to help us gain the largest return on our investment pertaining to a third party audit or assessment. With a multi-regulatory assessment we get the validation we need to ensure we are meeting our current and future client’s data security requirements.”

“Keeping up with consistently changing laws and regulations pertaining to data security is difficult for a business of any size,” says Michael Wright, Tech Lock’s Chief Security Officer. “One of our primary objectives is to not only help organizations meet their current compliance objectives but also to provide a roadmap for clients after certification on how to maintain compliance with the standards they have been assessed against.”

SMA, like many other businesses in the ARM industry, are frequently asked to show proof of compliance with standards or laws such as PCI DSS, HIPAA/HITECH, GLBA, ISO 27002, Massachusetts 201 CMR 17.00: Standards for the Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonwealth, and Nevada’s Personal Information Law NRS 603a. Depending on the standard or law, many of them can be time consuming to achieve. Utilizing a holistic assessment approach, organizations achieve all of their compliance requirements at a much quicker pace while reducing cost by not having to go through multiple assessments pertaining to each individual standard.

ABOUT STEPHENS & MICHAELS ASSOCIATES, INC.
Established in 1998, Stephens and Michaels Associates, Inc. is a nationally licensed collection agency offering a variety of service offerings including Up to Date Collections, Skip Locate, Repossession and Remarketing services. SMA utilizes the best technology, analytics, and employees to collect our client’s accounts and our collection practices always reflect positively on our client’s brands, values, and business practices. For more information, please visit www.smacollects.com.

ABOUT TECH LOCK, INC.
Tech Lock, Inc. is focused on serving the ARM industry, including credit grantors, collection agencies, debt buyers, service organizations, healthcare providers and more. Tech Lock’s IT professionals all possess Fortune 100 and ARM industry experience. This makes Tech Lock uniquely skilled in serving the ARM industry as it relates to information technology, data security, and regulatory compliance. Tech Lock is a service disabled veteran owned small business. For more information, please visit www.techlockinc.com.