Personal Data Privacy - The World’s Most Valuable Resource and How to Protect It

The data universe will consist of 175 zettabytes by 2025 — that’s 175,000,000,000,000 gigabytes. That’s a lot of zeros! Data has become the world’s most valuable (and vulnerable) resource. “As the world’s data has grown, we’re now talking about data in terms of zettabytes,” concurs Bernard Marr, author and futurist. But what is a zettabyte? A zettabyte is so much data that if you attempted to download 175 zettabytes, it would take 1.8 billion years.

When we’re talking about data, this includes personal data such as your vacation photos on Facebook, your work emails, your Yelp review of your new favorite restaurant, your blood pressure recorded at your last hospital visit, your Amazon order, the amount you spent when filling up for gas, the post you shared on LinkedIn and on and on. Everything you do involving any technology leaves behind a data point. We recommend adopting these 12 data privacy tips to help reduce your digital footprint.

Whenever we talk about data, data privacy comes into play. Data privacy is important, especially considering the growing exposure surrounding everything we do. Read Somebody’s Watching Me: How Our Online Behavior is Being Tracked to learn how consumers’ data is tracked and sold — and how to take proactive steps to reign in your digital footprint. For example, you can take back control of your privacy with IDX’s comprehensive privacy solution.

The Importance of Data Privacy

Not to be confused between data privacy and data security. Data privacy is focused on the use and governance of personal data—things like putting policies in place to ensure that consumers’ personal information is being collected, shared, and used in appropriate ways. With so much data potentially at risk, there are several precautions and proactive measures individuals can take to protect their identity and data privacy against cyber threats and minimize security risks. Check out: How to Take Charge of Your Digital Privacy, for a roundup of resources.

Data Privacy at All Levels

There is a fine line between balancing the data privacy of Americans and homeland cybersecurity concerns, states Tom Kelly, IDX president and CEO, in a recent radio interview with Kevin Price, the host of the Price of Business. Kelly says it’s up to government leaders to take evolving threats seriously, ensure network security, and provide thoughtful protections for consumers in the form of legislation. He recommends that consumers take charge of their digital privacy, by practicing good security hygiene and taking action at the legislative level by reaching out to local representatives or senators to make their voices heard in the fight for data privacy legislation.

Here’s the latest on the data privacy legislation front: Virginia is the second U.S. state to pass comprehensive consumer data privacy legislation. Known as the Consumer Data Protection Act, the law would go into effect January 1, 2023, and would “give consumers the right to determine whether their data is being collected and processed and ask for a copy of their data, correct inaccuracies, ask for the deletion of personal data, and opt-out of the processing of personal data that may be used for targeted advertising, sale, or consumer profiling,” according to RollCall.

Companies: A Little Security Goes a Long Way

“Instead of just securing networks and endpoints, CISOs must consider how their 2021 strategy will protect their remote workers while empowering them to work productively and flexibly...Companies must make security as flexible as their people in 2021,” states Tim Sadler, CEO of Tessian, in eWeek’s Predictions 2021: IT Security and Personal Data Privacy.

Companies that are managing a remote workforce, might want to read The New Normal: An Employer’s Survival Guide to Security for Remote Workers, which outlines best practices for security teams, tips for remote workers, and how to protect company data, networks, and other critical assets from bad actors. If you’re an employer, consider protecting your employees from America’s fastest-growing crime: identity theft. Learn how to implement a no-cost MSA program for data breach services with IDX’s latest Cybersecurity Healthcheck.

Data Privacy Begins with Me

We may think our personal data is inconsequential while we continue posting this and that without thinking through data privacy issues, but when cyber thieves put the pieces together, they could be well on their way to stealing your identity.