What Exactly is Personally Identifiable Information?
It’s incredibly important to keep your personally identifiable information secure, but what exactly constitutes PII? Today we offer a definition and suggestions or strategies to help you keep your PII safe.
The Definition of PII Depends on Who You Ask
If you want to protect PII to the best of your ability, you first need to understand what it is, but the answer to this question is not exactly clear-cut.
The United States identifies a couple-dozen identifiers in its legislation, but other countries have different ideas for what is considered PII. The European Union, Brazil, China, and even various US states like California and Virginia have different ideas of what makes for PII. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sees race, political opinion or affiliation, religion, and sexual orientation as PII, but the California Consumer Privacy Act does not.
With so many different factors and variables in place, it’s hard to define PII, which in turn makes it hard to protect it. Five US states want to hold companies more accountable for failing to protect PII, and regulators are in the same boat. For example, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney failed to properly dispose of consumers’ PII on servers and drives that they wanted to sell following a big move, resulting in a $35 million fine.
Avoiding Fines for PII Security
The first and foremost thing you need to account for is the PII as it is outlined for your industry. Take this information into consideration right from the start so there is no room for error or confusion. Implement it into your data handling and sharing practices immediately to ensure compliance.
Furthermore, you’ll have to test your protections to make sure that you are keeping your data as safe as possible. Be sure that the data, even if stolen, cannot be used to identify the individual.
To top it all off, implement solutions designed to protect your data on all levels, including encryption, identity and access management, and role-based permissions.
Point North Networks can help to make sure that your business is protecting its personally identifiable information. All you have to do to get started is call us at 651-234-0895.
Privacy Engineering is the Key to a More Secure Future
Minimise Your Organization’s Privacy Risk Through Privacy Engineering
Data privacy is a bit of a hot topic in today’s business environment, especially with high-profile hacks and ransomware attacks emerging and putting organizations at risk. In particular, the emerging concept of “privacy engineering” has a lot of businesses thinking about how they can secure their organization and future-proof their data privacy infrastructures.
Let’s discuss what privacy engineering is, as well as what some big names in the industry have to say about the future of data privacy.
What is Privacy Engineering?
The International Association for Privacy Professionals, or IAPP, defines privacy engineering as “the technical side of the privacy profession,” which can mean any number of things. For some, it is making sure that the processes involved in product design take privacy into consideration.
For others, it might mean the technical knowledge required to implement privacy into the products. At the end of the day, it seems there is a general consensus that privacy engineering is the consideration of privacy, from a user’s standpoint, throughout the production process, from conception to deployment. Simply put, it concerns the personal data collected as well as what happens when an organization or a hacker can access personal data.
This is notable for a couple of reasons. Systems and products that take privacy into consideration at every stage of development, and incorporate consent management and data subject access requests will be much more consumer-friendly.
Users can be more confident that their privacy has been considered through each stage of the process and that their personal data is safe, making them much more likely to buy the product. When products have a reputation for avoiding personal data collection for their own benefit, it would be no surprise to see profits increase.
This sets off a chain reaction for businesses that create these products which have privacy management at their core, increasing their bottom line. When businesses achieve this level of success simply by means of averting privacy risks, the value of the company increases, leading to more investors and the production of similar goods or services.
Furthermore, since data protection, privacy controls, and security are such an important part of modern computing, these types of investments are relatively safe from a shareholder’s point of view, as organizations that invest in products that meet specific regulations and set these high standards are more likely to persist into the future.
You can see how this all shakes out; in the end, the concept of privacy engineering is beneficial to both the consumer and producer. Therefore, placing your bets on technology that facilitates, and privacy engineers who can enable the design of such products is a great way to invest in your own company’s future.
What Does the Future Hold?
Back in 2020, Gartner made some predictions for where the constantly evolving discipline of data privacy was heading in the years to come. Here are some insights from their report:
Proactive Security and Privacy Are Better
When you take measures to build security and mitigate privacy risks in operations, you are more likely to build trust and adhere to regulations. We preach this all the time; it is easier to prevent issues from emerging than reacting to those that are already here. If that’s your default setting.
Increased Reach of Security Regulations
According to Gartner, 65% of the world’s population will have their privacy governed by some sort of data privacy laws or regulations by the year 2023. This is notable, especially with the rise of regulations like GDPR.
The Rise of a Privacy Officer
By the end of 2022, 1 million organizations will have appointed a data privacy officer or dedicated privacy engineering teams. Having someone within your organization whose sole responsibility is to keep you compliant with legal requirements and legal considerations means that you can rest easy knowing that you are doing all you can to make sure it stays that way.
Don’t Wait to Get Started
Point North Networks, Inc., can help your business ensure it is implementing adequate data privacy and security standards to protect the privacy and ensure risk-free data operations all across your infrastructure. To get started, reach out to us at 651-234-0895.
Frequently Asked Questions About Privacy Engineering
What are the 3 primary issues in privacy?
When it comes to data systems, the most pressing privacy issues include Data Tracking, Data Hacking, and Data Trading.
How can Privacy Engineering help Technology Companies?
Modern day technology companies are going out of their way for embedding privacy as a core feature in their products as well as business processes, while still enabling faster and more extensive access to data. In doing so, their ability to anonymize the data stored, build processes for data mapping without divulging personally identifiable information, and innovation all accounts for a competitive advantage!
Are there any disadvantages of Privacy Engineering?
As is the case with any new technologies, even privacy engineering comes with certain limitations, including the following –
- It has numerous legal requirements, some of which aren’t completely formulated yet
- The onset of newer technologies may cause unwanted and unforeseen violations
- The need for specialized privacy engineers and other privacy professionals, may make this endeavour rather expensive
