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What are Data Privacy and Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity and Data privacy are two distinct branches of the same sector that is becoming increasingly important as the world moves towards becoming more and more involved in activities within the ‘Metaverse’. In fact, 65% of organisations) have witnessed an increase in the number of cyberattacks to their company database since the pandemic signalling a veritable need to improve measures taken to combat internet security and privacy issues.

Data privacy can be defined as ‘the branch of data management that deals with handling personal data compliance with data protection laws, regulations, and general privacy best practices.’

Cybersecurity can be defined as ‘the practice of deploying people, policies, processes and technologies to protect organisation, their critical systems and sensitive information from digital attacks.’

In recent years, these two areas have grown in importance, with governmental bodies tightening regulations in order to increase online protection for consumers. This is known as Data Governance, which is the form of regulation that ‘requires organisations to know what data they have, where it’s stored, how it flows through their IT systems, and how it’s used.’ In fact, Data Governance can have an extremely large impact on the operations of all businesses that operate online. For instance, over the last few years, the largest global regulating body - the European Union, has brought in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which has meant that almost every company with an online presence has had to change the way that they operate in some way.

What is The General Data Protection Regulation?

The GDPR greatly affects the collection of data since the law has established that personal data can only be collected under certain and legitimate conditions. They have the primary goal of creating a safer atmosphere for the consumer, which evidently means a far more difficult time for many businesses, and marketers in particular, meaning that many companies have had to change significant elements of their business practices in order to remain operational in the world’s largest trading block. In particular, social media outlets have faced issues - with facebook within this set facing the largest number of difficulties.

Original issues relating to the GDPR that companies have faced have now multiplied as the GDPR has become the global standard for online regulations- with it becoming the data privacy consumer protection model for other nations to follow. GDPR became enforceable on 25th may 2018, closely followed by the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which was adopted on 28th June 2018. Both regulations share a large number of similarities, with both focusing on the primary goal of consumer protection and prevention of companies obtaining personal information on an individual. Since these regulations were established, many countries have followed suit, including Japan, Brazil and South Korea, as well as the UK upholding the same GDPR regulations post-Brexit.