What is Data Privacy Day?
Data Privacy Day, also known as Data Protection Day, is an event occurring every year on January 28. Its purpose is to raise awareness about data protection and promote the best data privacy practices.
Its initiatives focus on business as well as individual consumers and raises awareness about the importance of protecting our personal information, especially when it comes to social networking. Various events and activities take place during the day that promote the individual control of personally identifiable information and compliance with privacy laws as well as initiate discussions between companies, academics, IT professionals, consumers, and other interested parties.
Why is data privacy so important today?
2021 was a turbulent year when it came to privacy. Ransomware was a prevalent threat, and data hoarding reached unprecedented heights in the scary forms of metaverses, mental health tracking, and even dream hacking. As you can see, corporations and cybercriminals fight for our data and try to obtain it in various ways.
Moreover, big tech companies are becoming more powerful and inventing smarter and ever more creative ways to collect our data, usually without our knowledge or realization.
The current situation proves that we must cherish and protect our data privacy — it is one of our most valuable assets, and various actors would like to get their hands on it. Troy Hunt put it quite accurately in his recent interview:
“The problem is that organizations look at data as an asset and don’t tend to look at it as a liability. And particularly with cloud and really cheap storage and the fact that people’s data is valuable, organizations are just really not motivated enough to no longer store data that they don’t need.”
Since many of us use free social media services, we should constantly question the price we pay to do so and start to realize the value of the data we willingly give away.
The battle hasn’t been won yet, but let Data Privacy Day remind us that there are people and organizations that care and are ready to stand up for our online privacy.
How Nord Security promotes data protection
Nord Security values data privacy in a significant way, so Data Privacy Day is especially important to us. Our brightest minds work hard to come up with the best privacy-centric products and services to make your data as safe as possible from cybercriminals and prying eyes.
We also regularly support various initiatives, activists and organizations fighting for data protection and a more private and transparent online world, such as AccessNow, The World Wide Web Foundation, and various educational institution.
We strongly believe that privacy is not a luxury – it is a fundamental right. And it should be the default rather than achievable only by customizing our apps.
What can you do?
Even though we may end up repeating ourselves, here are a few essential privacy tips everyone should keep in mind:
- Use strong passwords so that no one can guess them and access your data.
- Use social networks sparingly — think twice before posting, and don’t share private and confidential data there.
- Use a VPN — it will encrypt your traffic and hide your IP.
- Don’t give away any of your personal data to people or services you don’t 100% trust.
- Always question if it’s really worth giving away your data for a service you sign up for.
- Encrypt your sensitive data.
Stay safe!
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