Author: Cherie Givens, Chief Privacy Officer
This week, Jan. 24-28, is Data Privacy Week – an excellent opportunity to raise awareness about privacy and data protection as well as the ways in which our privacy can be impacted by decisions that we make every day. Who among us has not downloaded an app without fully reading the user agreement or privacy policy?
How many of us leave location services on when we aren’t using them? This can provide data, over time, that may reveal information about our activities or interests (A Closer Look at Location Data: Privacy and Pandemics - Future of Privacy Forum (fpf.org). Many of us have screens crowded with apps we no longer use that may still be collecting and sending data. This week is the time to review our settings, delete apps we do not use, and disable tracking when it is not needed.
Data Privacy Week is also an opportunity to declutter our online presence. We can start by reviewing the privacy and security settings of our online accounts (Manage Your Privacy Settings - Stay Safe Online). Consider limiting the audience for past and current postings and delete inactive accounts.
We can use this week to teach our family members, especially children, privacy awareness and help them to understand how their data is collected and used. We can talk about the risks children and young adults may face online, including identity theft, bullying, and online predators. A week devoted to data privacy invites us to think about protecting our own privacy and the privacy of others.
NCDIT has more tips on protecting your privacy, how organizations can use data privacy as a competitive advantage, and how we use the Fair Information Practice Principles to guide data protection at NCDIT (Protecting Your Privacy and Data Protection & Privacy).
I hope you’ll join me this week in supporting data privacy at home and in the workplace.