Data Privacy Day Trends to Watch in 2021

It's more important than ever to protect the security and privacy of you, your employees, and your organization

Dubbed “the worst year ever,” by Time Magazine, the end of 2020 was much anticipated. And though there’s no denying that 2020 was quite unpleasant, we are grateful we learned one thing last year: we all need to be vigilant about protecting our data privacy.

The average American had their personal information stolen at least four times in 2019. And Gartner predicts that by 2023, forty percent of the global population’s individual activities will be tracked digitally in order to influence behavior. Being diligent with your security and privacy hygiene will continue to be critical in 2021 and beyond.

“Remote work created something of a new playground for hackers in 2020,” states Gartner in a TechRepublic article. The question remains: Will 2021 be any different?

We predict these 7 data privacy threat trends continuing to impact organizations and their employees in the coming year:

1. Data breaches. Data breaches will increase in 2021 due to “the rapid push of users to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, fear of job loss, and the ease with which data can be moved,” warns Lianna Brinded, head of Yahoo Finance UK. There’s no telling what or when someone’s personal information will be hacked and be posted on the dark web with the increase in scams, compromised data, and cyber threats. IDX’s identity and privacy products help to safeguard the user against identity and privacy threats.
2. Remote working. As pandemic restrictions lessen, employees may opt to work in a public environment, such as a local coffee shop. Connecting to public networks pose additional privacy and security risks for employees. Jeff Norton, in his Insurance Journal article, recommends educating everyone on the increased risks of public networks and provide them with a secure, encrypted virtual private network(VPN)
3. Absence of corporate culture. “With employees no longer tethered to the office, there’s an increased sense of detachment between employees and employers, which can be exploited by hackers,” contends Norton.
4. Phishing. Data indicates that phishing schemes continue to spike and hackers’ exploitation of COVID-19 to find new victims will likely increase with malicious attacks around promises of a vaccine, reports TechRepublic.
5. Telehealth. The pandemic has expanded the threat landscape for hospitals and healthcare systems — which could increase risks to patients’ privacy. The American Medical Association released insights on privacy and security risks and vulnerabilities brought on by telehealth and remote work. Healthcare organizations should turn to custom privacy solutions that protect their patients and staff from these ongoing threats.
6. IoT Devices. We are surrounded by IoT devices — there will be 35 billion smart devices online by 2021— and the issue is security, or lack thereof. “The IoT is still maturing, and is far from private or secure,” states Forbes contributor, Daniel Newman. He believes we’ll see companies prioritizing data safety and privacy in smart devices, similar to what Apple has been doing.
7. IoB Tracking. IoB (Internet of Behavior) is the collection and use of data based on consumer actions, used to change behavior. According to Gartner, “the IoB can gather, combine, and process data from many sources including: commercial customer data; citizen data; social media; public domain deployments of facial recognition; and location tracking.” Gartner predicts that by 2023, forty percent of the global population’s individual activities will be tracked digitally in order to influence behavior. There are obvious ethical and societal — including privacy — implications surrounding IoB.

Unprecedented Time mean Unprecedented Threats to Consumer Data Privacy.

Let’s face it: digital disruption, exacerbated by the pandemic, will not be going away anytime soon. But all of us can take proactive measures to protect the security of our digital privacy.

Email the IDX team at demo@idx.us for a demo of our new privacy product.