Data Privacy Week is taking place from January 21 – 27, 2024. The goal of Data Privacy Week is to spread awareness about online privacy. Data privacy should be a priority both for individuals and organizations. Our goal is twofold: we want to help individuals understand that they have the power to manage their data, and we want to help organizations understand why it is essential that they respect their users’ data.
You cannot control how each little piece of data about you and your family is collected. However, you still have a right to data privacy. You can help manage your data with a few repeatable behaviors.
- Know the tradeoff between privacy and convenience
- Adjust privacy settings to your comfort level
- Protect your data (think unique passwords and 2FA)
A violation of privacy can expose your data where you don’t want it to be known, can cause harm to your reputation, and even lead to identity theft.
For businesses, the stakes can be even higher!
“A recent McKinsey survey found that 71% of consumers said they would stop doing business with a company if it gave away sensitive data without permission.”
Businesses should be transparent about collecting, using, and sharing consumers’ personal information. Think about how the consumer may expect their data to be used. Design settings to protect their information by
Default. At a minimum, businesses should:
- Conduct an assessment
- Tip: Use the Assumed Secure app to conduct an MVSP assessment of your Minimum Viable Secure Product – Conduct a self-assessment or vet your data partners.
- Adopt a privacy framework
- Tip: Use a general privacy framework like the NIST Privacy Framework or something specific to your industry, such as A Privacy Risk Framework for the Lead Generation Industry
- Educate employees
- Create a privacy policy for your company and ensure your employees know it!
“92% of organizations say they need to be doing more to protect their customers’ data (Cisco).”
There are simple things that businesses can do to address the concern. For example, “seeding” data by adding unique dummy data is a common technique to detect leaks or breaches in data security and to monitor how data is being used.” that can go a long way in protecting the privacy of consumer data.
Learn more about how Assumed can help you do MORE to protect the privacy of the data under your care.
