January 28 is recognized as Data Protection Day in Europe, the United States and dozens of other countries including Canada and Israel. It provides a moment to reflect on where data protection regulations stand today and where they are going. At present, seemingly incongruent trends in cybersecurity policy threaten to confuse data protection efforts.
In light of Data Protection Day on January 28th, it’s important to be extra aware of how we protect our personal data. Whether we’re using social media, shopping online, or even just browsing the internet, we’re constantly sharing information about ourselves. While some of this data is innocuous, other pieces can be quite sensitive – like our addresses, credit card numbers, and health information. So what can we do to keep our data safe?
Companies accumulate massive amounts of data, whether it is intellectual property or customer and employee information. Data is a critical asset: it’s undeniable. If your business users have appropriate access to data, they can perform their jobs more efficiently and effectively, and they can analyze the data to derive key business intelligence that drives better business decisions. But if data isn’t protected from breaches, it can also be a liability.
When it comes to the way we work, change is now the status quo — and it often happens so quickly that security teams have a tough time keeping up. Organizations that try to keep using their perimeter-based security solutions are hindering their workers’ ability to collaborate while also losing a handle on their data.
Cyber incidents are becoming increasingly common and disruptive–whether it’s ransomware, data breaches, or leaks. The number of compelling events in the last few months in Australia have shown us the implications for businesses, and their customers, when a breach occurs.
A leading European regulator fined Meta Platforms Inc., the company that owns Facebook, 265 million euros, or around $276 million, for failing to better protect the phone numbers and other personal information of more than half a billion users from so-called data scrapers.
