We live in a period in which it’s difficult to go more than a few days without reading about data breaches or hacks that expose millions and millions of personal information to hackers. People are looking for ways to protect their information online.
It is essential to know how to safeguard personal information in your digital business in order to meet your legal obligations, as well as to safeguard the privacy of your customers. Here are a few tips to assist.
1. Identify Personal Data
According to the laws protecting data in the United States, personal data refers to any data that identifies or may be used to identify an individual. In today’s digital age, this can include anything from biometric data to email addresses. However, a lot of data that is private can be omitted from the scope of personal data when there are certain qualifying circumstances. For example the case where an organization gathers various kinds of data about individuals and they’re asked to declare their occupation it’s probably not personal information since it cannot be used to identify one person.
Many organizations are required to limit the amount of personal information they collect, and that’s typically a good thing as it will reduce the chance of a breach. In addition, most laws governing data protection require the highest level of security for sensitive personal information than standard personal data. This is because it could cause more harm or negative impacts on data subjects in the event of a data breach.