Instances of data privacy violations, identity theft and personal information misuse have led to increased monitoring and consumer pressure to prevent disclosure or compromise of personally identifiable and sensitive information.
Why Data Protection is needed?
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A case in point is the recent case where a researcher linked
to Cambridge Analytica (CA), a political consulting firm had accessed details
of 50 million Facebook users. The data was shared with Cambridge Analytica,
which used online data to reach voters on social media with personalized
messages and swayed 2016 US elections.
According to a report Demystifying the EU General Data
Protection Regulation, by Pwc, “As per
estimates, there have been more than 575 reported data breaches which have
exposed more than 13 million records in eight months in 2016.” In the backdrop
of increasing concerns over data thefts and mishandling of sensitive
information the government of various countries are formulating new policies to
contain data leaks. The recent development is General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) by European Union.
Respecting the Individual’s Data Privacy, Telecommunication
Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) suggests ‘Data security breaches may take
place in-spite of adoption of best practices/ necessary measures taken by the
data controllers and processors. Sharing of information concerning to data
security breaches should be encouraged and incentivized to prevent/mitigate
such occurrences in future.”
A single company may possess the personal information data
of millions of its customers. It needs to keep the data private so that
customers’ identities stay as safe and protected as possible, and the company’s
reputation remains untarnished. With the recent incidents of data breaches,
data privacy has become a more important concern now than before.
