Data privacy – the science and art of protecting and accurately disclosing to customers how personally identifiable information is being used by organizations – is as important today to enterprises as network security.
With the 11 th annual International Data Privacy Day being officially celebrated Jan. 28 th – which falls on a Saturday – privacy experts this week are looking back at privacy incidents in 2016 and ahead to 2017.
While the situation isn’t bad here they warn the public and private sectors not to be complacent.
“I think we’re in very good position” on privacy in Canada, says Ann Cavoukian , director of Ryerson University’s Big Data and Privacy Institute.
Many Canadian businesses are aware of the heightened public concern about privacy and fears of loss of control of personal information held by enterprises and governments, she said. In fact Cavoukian regularly advises businesses to loudly shout to customers they take data privacy seriously.
Customers will consent to secondary use of data if they have a trusted business relationship with the organization.
However, she’s worried about the privacy implications of data collected by so-called smart devices, ranging from watches to cars. Some manufacturers “are clueless,” she said, “because of all the information it can collect.” But they don’t know where all of it goes and if law enforcement can get access to it. “They don’t have the controls in place.”
David Fraser, a privacy lawyer with the Halifax firm McInnes Cooper, isn’t sure small and medium-sized Canadian firms “are up to speed in the way that they should be” on privacy.
