The 2010’s were a watershed period for everything related to personal privacy of common people. The decade that began with the turmoil surrounding Edward Snowden and his revelations, came to an end with governments and authorities mulling over data localization and well-defined guidelines surrounding the data privacy and their access and security.*
The “General Data Protection Regulation” or the “GDPR” of the European Union and the “California Consumer Privacy Act” or the “CCPA” have started a trend that signals towards the future where the authorities are very much in sync with the idea that “Data is the new oil” and are committed towards strategic use and protection of the same.
While Data Security deals with all things related to the protection of data, right from the access to the correct and authorized people to their use and transfer through proper mediums of encryption, Data Privacy generally is a part of the process, focused particularly on how data is being handled, collected, used, and maintained.
The organizations dealing with the entity seem to be still trying to figure their way around these regulations that the governments have been coming up with. The democratic setup was shocked with the Cambridge Analytica case and the aftermath which saw the way data and profiling of focus groups can be used to manipulate election results, and in that way, the course of a nation and international politics. This has made governments paranoid all over the world regarding their national and bloc securities, The hefty fine on Google that was imposed for not following the GDPR showcase the seriousness of the issue, as well as the complexity which the organizations are facing to understand what it means for them.
The organizations are rightly responsible for the data of their customers, and must follow multi-layered security measures, making multi-level authentication and encryptions wherever necessary to avoid the leakage of data to any non-party entity. Meanwhile, the companies also need to employ a sound team of lawyers and other industry experts to understand the legal features of these guidelines better to manoeuvre their activities better in the future.