What Is Data Privacy?

When personal information that should be kept private gets into the wrong hands, you can only imagine the bad things that could happen. For consumers, there’s the possibility of identity theft and financial fraud that could cost individuals and organizations millions of dollars per year. While data breaches continue to multiply, regulators are stepping up privacy requirements and consumers are becoming more careful about what they are sharing online. McKinsey reported that more consumers trust companies that limit the use of personal data and respond quickly to hacks and breaches — doing everything in their power to protect their data. 

What Is Data Privacy?

Data privacy is the regulatory and compliance factors of data that focus on how to properly manage, collect, share, and delete data at the consumer’s request. Data privacy is the practice of ensuring that the data shared by consumers is only used for its intended purpose. 

How Can You Meet Requirements? 

You can start with a comprehensive cybersecurity program. Data security includes the measures an organization takes to prevent an unauthorized individual from accessing sensitive consumer personal identifiable information (PII), employee PII, or intellectual property. 

If you are collecting data, implementing cybersecurity measures could reduce your organization’s chances of a breach. Learn which measures you should implement in our whitepaper Privacy Is Hard To Enact Without Security.