Thursday 28 January 2016

Happy Data Privacy Day, Randos!

Today we celebrate Data Privacy Day in honor of the January 28, 1981 signing of the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data. 35 years later, legislation such as this has never been more important.

Convention 108, as the treaty is more commonly known, was the first legally binding international agreement dedicated to the protection of individuals’ personal data. As the National Cyber Security Alliance reminded us in its Data Privacy Day video:

“What you may not realize is that there is probably more of your personal information floating around in cyberspace than you think. Everything from what you post on social media and your browsing habits to the information organizations collect about you online leaves a digital footprint...Information about you such as the games you like to play, what you search online and where you shop and live has value, just like money. Be thoughtful about who gets that information and how it’s collected through apps and websites.”

A year ago, we celebrated Data Privacy Day by offering our readers tips to enhance their online safety. Take a look. Although we wish we could report otherwise, these seven recommendations are as necessary today as they were in January 2015.

What we suspect has changed in the last year is the willingness of individuals to actively engage in data protection. In comparing 2014’s celebration with 2015’s, StaySafeOnline.org witnessed a nearly 125% increase in web traffic and the number of registered Champions of Data Privacy Day increased approximately 45%. Given that terms such as cybercrime law, data breach, encryption, government backdoor and VPN (and the concern for personal safety that they bring) are far more common than they were in January 2015, we expect this year’s celebration to be bigger than ever before.

January 28 is a day to envision a world that 'Respects Privacy, Safeguards Data and Enables Trust.’ Join us in striving to make this goal a reality.

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