Data privacy is not new. Protection of data has always been important from time unknown.
From locking the filing cabinets in the office to renting safety deposit boxes at the banks, humans have always safeguarded their personal data.
You would not want a wrong person to get hold of your passport or your competitor to get hold of your client’s confidential information.
However with data increasingly becoming digital and data storage dependent upon a “cloud”, protecting this data has become more important than ever.
What kind of data generally leaks online?
Data only becomes a target when it is of value to a third party. Different kinds of data are more or less valuable to third parties and represent different levels of risk to a business.
- Personally Identifiable Information- This includes data such as social security numbers, contact information, birth dates, education and other personal information.
- Financial Information– This includes credit card numbers and expiry dates, bank accounts, investment details and similar data.
- Health Information- This includes details on health conditions, prescription drugs, treatments and medical records.
- Intellectual Property- This includes product drawings and manuals, specifications, scientific formulas, marketing texts and symbols, proprietary software and other material that the business has developed.
- Competition Information- This includes data on competitors, market studies, pricing information and business plans
- Legal Information- This includes documentation on court cases the company may be pursuing, legal opinions on business practices, merger and acquisition details and regulatory rulings.
- IT Security Data- This includes lists of usernames and passwords, encryption keys, security strategies and network structure.
What will happen if your personal data is leaked?
Stolen identity
Personal, financial and health information can be sold and used for marketing, fraud and identity theft.
If the data like your national identity card/PAN card or social security number falls into the wrong hands, people could sign up for credit cards in your name, purchase large quantities of goods, and then not pay the bill, ruining your credit score as a result.
While sharing this information may become imperative for some tasks like signing up for vaccinations or availing certain benefits, the onus is also on the organisation collecting your data to protect the information received.
Safety
We often provide our home addresses and phone numbers easily on e-commerce websites. However this data if leaked may cause severe inconvenience to you.
If someone wanted to, they could target your house for break-ins or send threatening messages to your phone.
If your phone is hacked, you could have private text messages with sensitive information read by intruders. People who want to take advantage of your personal information will do so, even in lieu of your safety.
Legal risks
Organisations like banks or insurance companies may run in major legal issues if sensitive data of the users is leaked.
Word spreads fast of information leaked and inspires a backlash from customers and more. If it’s revealed that you weren’t protecting information, there could be legal consequences under privacy regulations of your state.
Business loss
Intellectual property can be sold and used to develop products and services similar to those of your business.
Competitive information can be sold and used by your competitors to block your plans and leaked legal information may damage your legal position.
Data on IT security is a valuable target in itself because it lets the unauthorized parties gain access to all the other types of information on your system.
If a data breach occurs in a business, you might be paying thousands of dollars in legal fees to fight your case and have significant penalties from creditors as a result of not being able to pay bills on time.
Lawyers play a major role from designing the privacy policies to protect the data collected for by business and websites. They play a vital role in negotiating and responding to government notices in case of data breaches.
After the pandemic as more and more data is being captured online, the importance of data protection is gaining traction.
This is the right time to make a career in the field of data protection since many countries have recently enforced privacy regulations and several others are in the process of introducing them.
Although these regulations may have jurisdictional boundaries, the data collected doesn’t have any such limitation.
Hence any data privacy regulation will have an international impact and businesses would need experts who understand different regulations and prevent them from huge penalties for non-compliance.
Also data breach causes irrecoverable losses to the companies. Businesses would rather invest heavily in protecting the data than salvaging their reputation after the data loss has occurred.
If you want to make a career in privacy and data protection;
Join us for a FREE 3-day bootcamp on International career opportunities for lawyers in Data Protection, Privacy Management and Technology Law from 29-31 May, 6-9pm Indian standard time.
During this bootcamp you will learn about different types of job roles in the data protection and privacy management field and how to explore untapped opportunities. We will also teach you how to build a track record for an international career and fetch clients from big tech startups to escalate your practice worldwide.
With the experience and skills gained in this bootcamp you will also be able to pitch yourself for jobs at big tech companies and work for start-ups all across the world.
If you have already registered then don’t forget to save this event in your calendar now:
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What skills will you learn at this bootcamp
- How to take decisions on international data transfer to and from US, UK, Canada, EU, Singapore, Japan or other countries?
- How to draft a data processing contract/ addendum?
- How to draft a GDPR-compliant privacy policy for a website or mobile app and use it to get more assignments?
- How to conduct a GDPR impact assessment for a startup outside the European Union?
- How to draft a GDPR impact assessment report?
- How to create a GDPR project implementation plan?
- How to draft your agreement for engagement as a data protection officer?
FREE GIVEAWAYS
If you attend this bootcamp on all the 3 days then you will receive templates of the following documents in the form of PDF:
Day 1 – Data Processing Agreement/ Addendum
Day 2 – GDPR Compliant Privacy Policy
Day 3 – 10 templates
- Personal Data Analysis Form
- Personal Data Flow Map
- Personal Data Asset Inventory List
- List of 3rd Party Processing Providers
- GDPR Impact Assessment Report Template
- GDPR Project Implementation Plan Template
- Cookie Policy
- DPO Agreement Template
- Checklist of Responsibilities of a DPO
- Compliance Checklist under California Consumer Privacy Act
These templates will help you kickstart your career in the field of data privacy as a lawyer.
Moreover it is FREE and you can attend it from any part of the world.
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One reply on “Why does data privacy law matter”
this is well written and very sensitive and very important topic to discuss and everyone should know about this , it must be the priority of every one to keep their data safe as this can be become seviour also I think everyone should start knowing some basic laws threw this blog any any other source but the information is important .