January 28th is Data Privacy Day

Data Privacy Day will be observed on January 28th across the globe to increase awareness and promote privacy and data protection best practices amongst businesses as well as individuals. Data Privacy Day recognizes the increasing—and often neglected—need to strengthen security to protect data and privacy. Sharing his views on the status of Data Privacy, Surendra Singh, Country Director, Forcepoint, India said, "In a hyper-connected world where consumers are willing to provide their personal data in order to get a service or a good deal online, data breaches have become a norm rather than an exception. Simply put, the more important data becomes, the more important are the tools to protect data."

Forcepoint recently predicted that 2018 will be the year a broad and polarising privacy debate is ignited not just within governments, but between ordinary people, who will start to question the erosion of the line between the personal and public sphere and how their personal data is collected, stored and used.

“In 2018, Governments around the world are reviewing and also legislating how personal data can be secured and incidents of data loss reported. In India, the government-appointed Srikrishna committee is currently working on a data protection law and has sought views from all stakeholders on issues pertaining to data transfer and accumulation, informed consent, data portability, as well as the appointment of a data authority. Similarly, the EU's GDPR act coming into effect in May will make it more important than ever for businesses to properly protect private data." Singh said, “These moments of legislative history present an opportunity for organizations to step up their security efforts and build a culture that upholds the need to protect customer data. Data Privacy Day is a good reminder for organizations to build a human-centric security approach, which focuses on the interaction of people and critical data to not only protect their business and customer’s data but also their employees and Intellectual Property.”