Reviewing the role and the growing importance of Data Privacy

As cybercrimes grow in sophistication at the same rate as technologies, businesses are compelled to review how they handle their clients’, and even their own, data. For some, data privacy is all about how information should be collected, stored, managed, and even shared with any third parties, and even in compliance with the applicable privacy laws (including the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR).

Together with all the other necessary cahoots of data security, data privacy is identifiable as an added layer of security measure that creates an area with protected usable data as an output.

However, data privacy is not solely about proper handling of information or data, but is also about the public expectation of privacy, with the individual as a key figure.

 

What are the key elements of data privacy?

Data privacy or information privacy circumvents around three key elements:

The main goal of data protection laws all around the world is to give individuals control of the data they give out, empowering them to know why their data will be used, by whom, and to what purpose.

 

Data privacy is not the same as data security

Some, however, make the mistake of putting “data privacy” and “data security” on the same level. To wit, data privacy deals with how an organisation complies with globally-recognised laws, while data security focuses on particular practices and measures an organisation has to prevent any unauthorised access to their database.

To give a better idea of the difference between data privacy and security, imagine a certain company introducing all the elaborate data security methods using all the necessary means and measures that are required to protect data. Yet, despite all these measures in place, it has failed to collect all these data and information on a valid and lawful basis.

With this example, one can say data privacy measures are absent. It goes to show that data security can exist without data privacy, but not the other way around.

 

Data Privacy and Trust

With the rapid and escalating changes in the way companies and individuals are recognizing the value and importance of protecting user data, a long list of data privacy law initiatives has been set in place.

Thriving businesses have already amalgamated data privacy and data protection strategies to promote themselves as trustworthy companies. A good number of customers consider trust in companies plays a big factor now more than ever, and part of earning their trust is assuring them of their data’s continued privacy.

How to achieve your goals while staying compliant?

From a business standpoint, putting an emphasis on protecting personal data can have multiple positive impacts on the organization. Particularly, this gives a business a number of competitive advantages in the form of the following:

More than ever, the world is exchanging more data than it did before. Due to the non-stop change in technology, data privacy solutions are always on the go to follow that change.

As Data Protection laws grant certain rights––right to data portability, right to be informed, right to data rectification, and many other things––companies are obligated to fulfill these rights or risk losing the trust of their client base.

While data privacy software can help you achieve and demonstrate compliance, automating and operationalising these principles of data privacy are best left in the capable hands of data professionals.

If this is your top concern as a data privacy officer, our team at ADEC SOLUTIONS UK can help. Book a 20-minute consultation with our data experts to learn how we can maximise the integrity and security of your data.