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Daily trading of goods and services in the digital economy is something modern customers should be informed about. Your personal data is made available to several third parties for the sole purpose of enabling many businesses to make money, but also increasing the risk that your pieces of information leaked or hacked into causing real damage.
This is where data protection laws come in handy for individuals. However, if handled wrongly, they can fail to preserve the status quo. Therefore, to have your online data protected, it’s good enough to get legal advice from an attorney who has great knowledge regarding all these data protection laws.
Overview of Data Protection Laws
In contrast with its European counterparts, the United States lacks one single policy or directive concerning data protection, and as such, various federal and state legislations govern handling data across different industries and within corporate processes.
Nonprofit organizations in this country are governed by both the federal and state legislation that enforces the USA’s data protection law. Also, under federal law, collection, storage, and use of material nonpublic information usually fall under their control.
On the other hand, state statutes often dictate whether notification is required when nonpublic personal information may have been breached due to improper security measures. Nonprofit entities must review their operations closely to identify those states that exercise jurisdiction over them. Moreover, governmental authorities also can enforce federal statutes if they provide for private rights of action by injured parties who sue for damages against violators; besides this civil actions may likewise be brought by private individuals enforcing state statutes.
The types of specific data collected, transferred, and used are regulated by privacy legislation. Personal information includes any details such as names, images, email account numbers, addresses, IP addresses, and biometrics relevant to a person, among others.
Various countries' jurisdictions' industries have distinct rules on privacy and Data Protection. For instance, China’s Data Privacy Act was established on 1st June 2017, while the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was effective in 2018. Non-compliance can be associated with reputational risks and financial penalties, depending on the breach and instruction provided by each legislation or regulatory entity. It should be noted that compliance with one set of rules does not indicate conformity to all laws since each law consists of various provisions which may be applicable under some circumstances.
Data Privacy vs. Data Protection
Data protection is focused on ensuring adherence to these limits, while data privacy is about understanding who can have access to it. The regulations that data protection tools conform to are also followed by the ones for data privacy. Unfortunately, making policies for data privacy does not hinder unauthorized people from accessing it. Moreover, sensitive information may still be left unprotected even when you apply data protection laws to restrict access.
Thus, the security of information requires data protection as well as privacy. Lastly, while discussing the difference between these two ideas. Another major distinction between these two concepts is who has ultimate control over personal information retained by its user. For example, individuals often decide how much of their details can be shared with others based on confidentiality grounds.
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Best Practices Implementing Data Protection Laws
Below are some best practices for securing your organization’s data.
- Keep an Eye on Your Data. One way to get data protection is by knowing what data you have, how it is used, and where it is maintained. You should have policies that detail how this data is collected and used. For instance, you must indicate how often data is sought, and after getting a result, mention how it can be classified. Moreover, your privacy policy must also specify what safeguards are needed for different levels of data protection. Furthermore, rules should also provide measures for auditing protections to ensure that solutions are implemented correctly.
- Verify not Collect. Make sure the laws on your data protection only allow for collecting the necessary information. Should you gather more than your requirement, then it means that your security teams will be stretched unnecessarily and increase your liability. By keeping low on the quantity of data collection, you can also save bandwidth usage as well as storage space. The “verify not collect” framework could help with this. Instead of storing or transferring user information to your systems, these systems leverage third-party data to verify users.
- Keep Transparency with Users. Most individuals would want to know honestly how one uses their stored data because they are aware of their privacy rights. User consent is now a key component of GDPR regarding usage and acquisition of personal details. Incorporate privacy matters into your websites so that you evaluate users and their permission through this process. Do not forget about clear user notices that explain why & when these people are acquiring details, plus an option for them all to alter or decline any acquisitions made on their part concerning information about themselves.
Trends in Data Protection
To better comply with data protection regulations, organizations need awareness of certain trends in data protection. Some recent trends in relation to personal information include:
Data Independence & Portability
Most modern IT companies require some form of working mobility around their operations, which refers to ability transfer yet keeps performing tasks across various software platforms. One may frequently refer to the transferability between on-premises data centers, public clouds, and various clouds as data portability. Data is a legal issue because it has different protection laws and rules depending on the place it is housed in.
Also, formerly data was not portable, and moving datasets to another location was a long-lasting effort and difficult in cloud computing or even cloud data migration. New technological approaches are being invented to facilitate relocation and increase such data portability.
Similarly, within clouds, the mobility of information poses a similar problem. Most cloud service providers have proprietary data structures, templates, and formats. It leads to vendor lock-in and makes it difficult to migrate data between clouds. Consequently, companies need standardized ways of controlling & storing this data for easier transferability between clouds, which calls for better personal information protection.
Mobile Data Security
Mobile device security refers to measures put in place to protect private company information kept on laptops, smartphones, tablets, wearables, and other handheld devices. This aspect of mobile device security involves preventing unauthorized access to your company network. It also forms part of network safety, which is an essential element of the IT world today.
Various tools exist for protecting mobile data by detecting threats, backing up important information, and keeping endpoints safe from dangers entering corporate networks. Mobile staff—IT staff- use mobile data encryption software to secure mobile access to systems and networks.
Final Thoughts on Data Protection Laws
Because personal and sensitive information is increasingly used, it is more critical than ever to keep it safe from cybercriminals. Therefore, international bodies have enforced data protection laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to resolve this problem.
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ContractsCounsel is not a law firm, and this post should not be considered and does not contain legal advice. To ensure the information and advice in this post are correct, sufficient, and appropriate for your situation, please consult a licensed attorney. Also, using or accessing ContractsCounsel's site does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and ContractsCounsel.
