Privacy Day 2019

               Tomorrow, 28th of January, in Europe and in North America is celebrated the vital right to privacy. All over the world they understand the importance of privacy to a dignified life, to autonomy, to security, to a life without harm, bullying, unjustified annoying, drag and intrusive situation. This post is a summary of four articles. The first was published with the incomplete title above at https://staysafeonline.org/event/data-privacy-day-2019-new-era-privacy/.  The second was published at  https://www.forbes.com/sites/taylorarmerding/2019/01/23/national-data-privacy-day-is-wishful-thinking/#56529b711128. The third was published at  https://www.sunyopt.edu/offices/its/infosec/dpd. The fourth was published at  https://www.coe.int/en/web/data-protection/data-protection-day#{%2220421407%22:[0]}

                Data Privacy Day is an international effort held annually on January 28 to create awareness about the importance of respecting privacy, safeguarding data and enabling trust. This year, Data Privacy Day will spotlight the value of information. Whether you are an individual looking to better manage your privacy and how your data is collected and shared, or a business collecting , using and storing that information, remember: Personal information is like money. Value it. Protect it. The technology landscape is rapidly changing and is forging a new era in privacy. 

                You have to have a supreme sense of irony, or be in major denial, to call Monday, January 28, Data Privacy Day. Given the current state of big data collection and "sharing" (selling) by online giants and tech com, combined with the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to draw intrusive inferences about us from all that data, it would be much more accurate to call it Privacy is Dead Day. Or Lack of Privacy Day. Because the modern threats to privacy are not just that your credit card or bank account could get compromised. It is that your life, everything about your life, can be collected and analyzed by companies, governments, groups and even individuals in a way that, collectively, starts to sound very much like Big Brother. "All the inferences about my pay, sexual preferences, friends, political affiliations, travel plans, vacation thoughts, infidelities, and so on and on are way more invasive than the standard name, social security number, credit card number, etc. invasions," said Sammy Migues, principal scientist at Synopsys. Yes, we have been talking about big data and AI for more than a decade but, as Migues noted, they are now at a scale that "many companies and government agencies can broadcast private about an individual or organization almost anyone." Andrew Burt, chief privacy officer and legal engineer at Immuta, made much the same point recently in the Harvard Business Review. While "unauthorized access to our data used to pose the biggest danger to our digital selves," he wrote, the biggest risk now is the threat of "unintended inferences" made possible by AI and machine learning (ML). Actually, most of the inferences he mentioned don't seem unintended. He wrote that "researchers used machine learning techniques to identify authorship of written text based simply on patterns in language. Which was obviously intended. And of course, the same techniques could be used, as Migues said, to get accurate inferences about political learnings and much more intimate details about things like health, habits and preferences. There are increasing, and increasingly vocal, demands to reign in what for years now has been termed a a "golden age of surveillance." Enough so that it might seem like you could call this coming Monday Reclaim Our Privacy Day. Indeed, the outrage extends well beyond last year's Facebook/Cambridge Analytical scandal and the somewhat cathartic theater of every TV news channel showing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg being figuratively frog-marched before congressional committees for some rhetorical flogging after the social media giant sold data on 87 million or so of its users to the now defunct British data analytics company. Reportedly, The Federal Trade Commission is getting ready to hit Facebook with a fine of more than $22.5 million it levied on Goggle for privacy violations. But in just past few weeks, there has been another explosion of demands that companies stop collecting data on people without their awareness or permission. Apple CEO Tim Cook declared earlier this month in Time magazine that the problem is "solvable" that it is possible to "tostrip identifying information from customer data or avoid collecting it in the first place," to let users know what data is being collected about them and why, to give them access to that data, to correct or delete it, and to make sure what data is held is secure. A recent investigation showed that some tech companies, including T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint, were selling location data on their customers that could end up in the hands of private entities "ranging from cars salesmen and property managers to bail bondsmen and bounty hunters." 

              Held every year on January 28, commemorates the 1981 signing of convention 108, the first legally binding international treaty dealing with privacy and data protection. Launched in Europe and adopted in North America in 2008, Data Privacy Day brings together businesses and private citizens to share the best strategies for protecting consumers' private information. Led by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) in the U.S. NCSA is partnering with leaders in industry, government, and the nonprofit sector to educate organizations about the importance of respecting privacy and protecting personal information. With high-tech gadgets on our wrists, in our cars and in our kids' toy chests, we are now faced with an even more complex environment in which to manage our privacy. The abundance of personal information collected by these devices can be stolen and used in negative ways. Recent news about connected toys have shed light on the risks of data being collected and used in ways we might not expected or approve. It is vital that all companies be open and honest about how they collect, use and share personal information. In addition, businesses must be vigilant about security and respecting privacy. Whenever possible, all persons should try to understand how their information is collected, used and shared. 

             In 2006, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe decided to launch a data protection day, to be celebrated each year on 28 January. This date corresponds to the anniversary of the opening for signature of the Council convention for the protection of individuals which has been for over 30 years a cornerstone of data protection, in Europe and beyond. Data Protection Day is now celebrated globally and is called the Privacy Day. Why? Data protection issues, including their cross-border dimensions, are forever present in citizens' lives, at work, in their relations with public authorities, in the health field, when they buy goods or services, when they travel or surf the internet. Nevertheless, it is a well-known fact that European citizens are generally unfamiliar with data protection and unaware of their rights in this respect. The Data Protection Day should be a special occasion, a time set aside by each and every one of us to familiarise ourselves with a largely unknown, yet major, facet of our everyday lives.