Data Privacy

Data privacy generally means the ability of a person to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent personal information about them is shared with or communicated to others. This personal information can be one's name, location, contact information, or online or real-world behavior. Just as someone may wish to exclude people from a private conversation, many online users want to control or prevent certain types of personal data collection.

As Internet usage has increased over the years, so has the importance of data privacy. Websites, applications, and social media platforms often need to collect and store personal data about users in order to provide services. However, some applications and platforms may exceed users' expectations for data collection and usage, leaving users with less privacy than they realized. Other apps and platforms may not place adequate safeguards around the data they collect, which can result in a data breach that compromises user privacy.

Importance:-

In many jurisdictions, privacy is considered a fundamental human right, and data protection laws exist to guard that right. Data privacy is also important because in order for individuals to be willing to engage online, they have to trust that their personal data will be handled with care. Organizations use data protection practices to demonstrate to their customers and users that they can be trusted with their personal data.

Personal data can be misused in a number of ways if it is not kept private or if people don’t have the ability to control how their information is used:

• Criminals can use personal data to defraud or harass users.
• Entities may sell personal data to advertisers or other outside parties without user consent, which can result in users receiving unwanted marketing or advertising.
• When a person's activities are tracked and monitored, this may restrict their ability to express themselves freely, especially under repressive governments.

Challenges users face when protecting their online privacy?

Online tracking: User behavior is regularly tracked online. Cookies often record a user's activities, and while most countries require websites to alert users of cookie usage, users may not be aware of to what degree cookies are recording their activities.

Losing control of data: With so many online services in common use, individuals may not be aware of how their data is being shared beyond the websites with which they interact online, and they may not have a say over what happens to their data.

Lack of transparency: To use web applications, users often have to provide personal data like their name, email, phone number, or location; meanwhile, the privacy policies associated with those applications may be dense and difficult to understand.

Social media: It is easier than ever to find someone online using social media platforms, and social media posts may reveal more personal information than users realize. In addition, social media platforms often collect more data than users are aware of.

Cyber crime: Many attackers try to steal user data in order to commit fraud, compromise secure systems, or sell it on underground markets to parties who will use the data for malicious purposes. Some attackers use phishing attacks to try to trick users into revealing personal information; others attempt to compromise companies' internal systems that contain personal data.

Technologies for data privacy:-

• Encryption is a way to conceal information by scrambling it so that it appears to be random data. Only parties with the encryption key can unscramble the information.
• Access control ensures that only authorized parties access systems and data. Access control can be combined with data loss prevention (DLP) to stop sensitive data from leaving the network.
• Two-factor authentication is one of the most important technologies for regular users, as it makes it far harder for attackers to gain unauthorized access to personal accounts.

By

Rishikesh R.L