A guest post from IRM Consulting and Advisory

Introduction

Over the past few years, concerns about data privacy and security have been growing steadily. Where is my data going to reside? Is my data stored in a secure place? Who can access my data? These are some serious questions asked by modern-day digital users. Meanwhile, enterprises that manage user data also want to comply with the most secure and private standards available in the market. Companies are aware that if they collect any type of user data, they also have to protect it.

Even though Data Security and Data Privacy are two separate concepts, they are often confused overtimes. Here is a brief explanation of both terms.

Data Security

In data security, the goal is to protect the user data from unauthorized access, manipulation, or theft throughout the data lifecycle. Although the focus of data security techniques is primarily on securing user data, it also encompasses the infrastructural security of an organization. As it will be pointless to deploy un-hackable security solutions if the infrastructure containing such data is not secure enough. Some key data security types include:

Data Encryption

Data encryption uses a variety of algorithms that convert the data into unreadable formats. The result is that if a malicious user manages to bypass security and access user data, they will not be able to decrypt it back into readable form until they have the decryption keys, protecting the data from unauthorized disclosure.

Data Erasure

Data erasure is a more advanced method of wiping data from secondary storage devices. The usual method of deleting data does not completely erase it, and the data can still be recovered. Data erasure techniques use various software solutions that remove all traces of user data, making it impossible for the data to be recovered.

Data Masking

The purpose of data masking is to modify the content of data in a way that will not be useful to an unauthorized user manages to access the data. In addition, data masking ensures that all users have consistent access to the data, thereby creating an alternate version. The technique is also known as Data Obfuscation.

Data Anonymization

Data anonymization is a type of information sanitization whose intent is privacy protection. It is the process of removing personally identifiable information from data sets, so that the people whom the data describes remains anonymous.

Data Resiliency

Data Resilience refers to an organization’s ability to ensure continuous availability of data through replication. The response time of an organization towards a data failure directly impacts the availability of the data for its users and customers. Near real-time replication and faster recovery time and recovery point objectives can reduce the impact of data unavailability.

Data Security Techniques

Data security can be achieved with a variety of practices and tools that an organization or individual can use. Some of the most important are:-

  • Data Discovery: This step involves the identification of the sensitive data points that are scattered across an organization.
  • Data Loss Prevention: Here you need to implement techniques or tools to protect data from theft, loss, or accidental deletion or disclosure.
  • Backup: Taking a backup involves taking a full copy of your important data and storing it off-line, so that if you lose your original data, you can restore it from the backup.
  • Firewall: The firewall is used to block unwanted traffic through the organization’s network.
  • Multi-Factor Authentication and Authorization: Strong authentication, provides better assurance to ensure the identity and authenticity of users accessing your organization’s network.
  • Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery: In the event of a natural disaster, or unforeseen event or incident, having a plan to ensure continuity of business operations; and a plan to quickly recover is important for an organization to ensure availability of products and services.

Data Privacy

Data Privacy is concerned with the handling, storing, and processing of an individual’s personal or health information. In general, privacy is an individual right concerning the freedom from prying eyes and intrusions. A large part of data privacy is about access control, i.e., limiting who gets access to the data and who doesn’t. Data privacy also includes an organization’s policy to share user data with third parties. Some legal concerns about data privacy include but not limited to:-

  • Managing Contracts or Policies
  • Applying governing regulation or law, for instance, the General Data Protection Regulation aka GDPR
  • Third-Party Management
  • Protected Health Information

The importance of data privacy boils down to the privacy laws and regulatory requirements in the jurisdictions in which an organization and its customers are based in addition to specific requirements that may be required by business partners.

Business Asset Management

Data has become the biggest currency in today’s world. Usually, companies collect lots of user data and sell them to third parties to earn a fortune. Social media is one of the biggest data collection points for companies. Customer trust comes from a company’s privacy policy and its transparent approach to establishing policies that are in compliance with Privacy Laws.

Regulatory Compliance

Every business has to abide by the rules of the regulatory body in its area. Making sure your business policies are compliant with the regulatory body is even more important. Businesses should be cautious when collecting, storing, and processing user data as any unauthorized disclose of theft may result in hefty fines. Additionally, organizations should ensure that user data is properly secured and protected from unauthorized access and disclosure.

Similarities and differences between Data Security and Data Privacy

It is quite common to see data security and data privacy overlap. As an example, a user may encrypt data to improve privacy, but the same method can also be used for data security. At the same time, securing data doesn’t always imply that it is also secure from privacy violations. In other words, just because an organization guards data from malicious users does not mean it is also compliant with privacy regulations.

In order to distinguish between the two concepts , remember that data privacy controls focus more on making sure that the data is only available to authorized parties, whereas data security controls protect the data regardless.

Conclusion

Malicious attempts by hackers to steal user data have always been a major concern for the digital market. However, a growing number of digital enterprises have begun to violate users’ privacy rights. As a result, digital users have become increasingly concerned about both data security and privacy. Today, users are more cautious about giving their data over to multinational conglomerates.

As an enterprise, you should ensure that the policies and culture of your organization comply with the latest security standards, legal and regulatory requirements as well as respect the digital privacy of your users. Be transparent about your privacy policies and how you handle user data. This will not only increase your user base but will also increase your worth in the digital market.