Data Privacy Day — a day to stop, think, connect

Data Privacy Day occurs each year on January 28. The theme of this year’s Data Privacy Day is Respecting Privacy, Safeguarding Data and Enabling Trust. This is an international effort to create awareness about the importance of privacy and protecting personal information for the consumer as well as the business community.

Last year on Data Privacy Day, the National Cyber Security Alliance released results of a survey showing 84% of Americans felt “a lot” or a “tremendous amount” of responsibility to protect their personal information. While the need to take responsibility was widely felt by respondents, not knowing what information organizations were collecting or how it was being used ranked higher as a concern than losing a job or becoming a victim of crime.

Nearly nine out of ten people surveyed were concerned about their personal information being shared or used without their knowledge, yet two-thirds of the respondents felt powerless to control that information use. Data Privacy Day is intended to raise awareness of the importance of personal privacy not only for individuals, but also for the businesses who use our information.

The survey showed more and more people are resorting to strong passwords to protect their information. They are also limiting the companies they do business with to those they trust. Unfortunately, many people don’t know what they can do to protect their information.

One of the resources provided as part of this year’s Data Privacy Day is a link to the data privacy help pages for many of the major services. Using the links for these services makes it easy to find out the policies of each service and how you can control what happens to your information.

The minute-and-a-half video included here provides more information about Data Privacy Day and what you can do to protect your information.