Observing Data Privacy Day with LIVEcommunity

[jadickson]

Have you ever felt a lack of control over your personal data? You’re not alone. In fact, it’s safe to say that lots of people would like to have control over their personal data -- or at a minimum, know who has access to it, why they do, and what to do about it. On behalf of the LIVEcommunity Team, I will share a bit of info about Data Privacy Day, which happens every year on January 28.

What is Data Privacy Day, Anyway?

Back in 2007, the Council of Europe was first to recognize Data Protection Day (its European name). In 2009, the United States Congress also passed resolutions to proclaim January 28 as Data Privacy Day. But these were just recent official recognitions. As far back as 1981, the Council of Europe was considering ways to protect individuals’ data. Automatic processing and technological development have made it an important concern for decades now. Data Privacy/Protection Day is now recognized in the US, Canada, Israel and 47 European countries.

It Matters to All of Us

Data Privacy Day is all about the importance of protecting privacy of personal information online. Obviously this is a huge deal in the context of social media, where data privacy can be an afterthought and criminals and predators have leveraged data availability in negative ways. Of course, data privacy is important in many more instances, because everything from email and cell phone use to online shopping involves your personal data!

The goal of Data Privacy Day also includes encouraging businesses to respect users’ privacy, while at the same time educating and helping everyone — from individuals and families to teachers, professionals and world leaders — to see the value of data privacy.

Thoughts from @kiwi and @jdelio

Of course, Palo Alto Networks is the largest cybersecurity vendor in the world and also the largest network security vendor in the world. We believe that privacy is important for our customers’ trust.

Every day on LIVEcommunity, my teammates Kim Wens @kiwi and Joe Delio @jdelio help answer your questions, including the ones about data protection and how to effectively use products and tools offered by Palo Alto Networks to make your organization secure.

"Cyberattacks are frequently making the news,” said Kim Wens, LIVEcommunity’s Sr. Solutions Engineer. “Data Privacy Day is a great occasion to reflect on your company's security and privacy."

"It's important to understand where your data is kept, how much there is of it, and how to protect the different kinds of data." --@kiwi 

"Data Privacy Day is just like a health check up, but for your security and privacy posture, to keep your data secure and your company protected," said Joe Delio, LIVEcommunity’s Sr. Staff Engineer Knowledge.

"This also would be a great time to look at some of those old passwords that haven't been changed in a long time,” Joe added. “Think of this like a Digital Spring Cleaning for your passwords.”

Joe and Kim added that everyone reading this blog should visit our Data Loss Prevention technology resource page. Many LIVEcommunity members already know that it’s the perfect place to find information related to the topic of data protection, and also to ask questions and get answers.

More Information

• [BLOG] Read Joe’s recent blog about the new Enterprise Data Loss Prevention (DLP) by Palo Alto Networks. It’s our answer to ensure that your sensitive data is not lost, misused, or accessed by unauthorized users.
• [VIDEO] You can also watch the Enterprise DLP announcement video on-demand. 
• [WEBINAR] We also have a great on-demand webinar about the recent SolarStorm cyberattacks, including steps you can take to protect your organization’s data from future threats.
• [WEBINAR] I also suggest checking out Building a Scalable Strategy for Cloud Security, which is another great webinar about what you can do today to guard against data theft.
• [WEBSITE] Palo Alto Networks also has a website section dedicated to data privacy. Here you can learn how our products collect information, what we do with it and how we protect it: https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/legal-notices/trust-center/privacy
• [NCSA] The National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCSA) has a page dedicated to managing your privacy settings. You can use the direct links there to check or change your privacy options for online shopping, email, food delivery and mobile phone companies.
• [PRESS RELEASE] Here’s all of the info from the NCSA about Data Privacy Day 2021, including interesting details about how the global pandemic has affected the data landscape, and tips and best practices for both consumers and businesses to keep in mind, during and beyond this year’s Data Privacy Day.

We Want to Hear Your Thoughts

Now that you’ve read about what this day means to our own Solution Engineers, we want to hear from you about Data Privacy Day and data protection! Please leave a comment below, like and subscribe to our LIVEcommunity blog, and feel free to share.