As the world is progressing towards technological advancements that help simplify everyday tasks, there is also a critical concern submerging regarding “Data Privacy.”
Organizations or individuals can determine what data in their network/computer system can be shared with third parties. The third parties here are the companies that gather everyday data and use that for their business accomplishments.
This includes necessary information such as age, gender, religion, hobbies, choices that are accessible from social media, or advanced knowledge such as browsing patterns or search histories for a marketing basis.
As time has shifted towards keeping our data online, online data privacy is a concern for everyone today. Privacy here can mean either of the two: Personally-Identifying Information (PII) or non-PII information such as a visitor’s behavior on a website. PII is any information that can be used to identify an individual.
A combination of only age and physical address can alone determine who the individual is without the need to disclose their name. Soon GPS Tracking Data used by applications will also become a form of PII. This is something that every individual does today since it’s the online age now. Which means, online data privacy is a concern for everyone, whether that be a teenager, adults, or senior citizens.
Let’s assume an individual is not aware of these details. What happens if their data privacy is invaded or breached?
Once the data is breached, it hurts both individuals and organizations as sensitive information is compromised. The term confidential data is being used as it can be your banking details from using online banking, the passwords to your email addresses that contain sensitive information regarding your work/organization, or your credit card information from when you went online shopping.
Once these details are breached, you are likely to face the following effects:
1. Financial Loss – In case of breach of baking details or credit card information, individuals are likely to face financial loss or money frauds that will wipe them out clean.
Whereas for organizations, the economic loss upon data breach would be due to compensating customers, lost shares, and customers or heightened investment in security costs.
2. Reputational Damage – Once the word is out about a company having a data breach, it will spread like wildfire, causing a massive hit to their reputation in the market, giving an edge to competitors and losing customers.
3. Operational Disruptions – Depending on the severity of the breach, it can result in complete loss of essential data, which will require the victim to spend long periods recovering.
In such cases, usually, the solution is a total shut down of all your operations until the solution and source of the breach are found. As an organization, the longer the operations are shut down, the more the loss of finances and customers they will have.
4. Legal Ramifications – In cases of cyber breaches that involve an individual’s personal information, it often results in a class-action lawsuit.
Over the years, that has led to tens of millions of dollars being paid out by companies for a settlement. As organizations, they lose tons of money in case of settlements and the legal fees that go along these payouts.
PureVPN is celebrating Data Privacy Day. Join hands with PureVPN in supporting this cause.
Learn more about Data Privacy Day 2022.
Many countries have now passed legislation for protection against illegal use of private information. But is that enough? Hence, those who want to take safety precautions themselves here is what they can do:
Learn more about internet privacy.