The Future Of Data Protection
Amidst this world scenario of digitalization, 'data' has come up as the most important and valuable asset. Be it personal or professional, if in any case confidential data and information are compromised, the loss so caused will be irreversible. Hence data privacy and protection have become of utmost significance. And it would be interesting as well as crucial to see what would be the future of data protection in the coming years.
The USA government has already started a privacy debate and is working on implementing some serious privacy changes. Let us try to peep into the future and figure out the possible data protection roles and regulations in the upcoming years.
What do we Mean by Data Protection?
It is no secret that the world is moving rapidly towards digitalization. Be it banking, shopping, dating, paying bills, or anything (except a few things like giving birth to young ones) is just a touch away. Especially after the Covid pandemic, more power comes into the digital world. Hence protecting data becomes a need.
We're compelled to share our data at many on-line places so it has to be handled with great care. data protection is not all about keeping it safe while sharing online but a lot more things come into the picture including who is seeing your data and why, what data can be seen, etc. So 'data protection' is a broad term.
There are laws and regulations in place to ensure the future of data privacy. However, certain loopholes still exist which makes data privacy vulnerable and exposed to risk. We've moved to a digital age where privacy is a human right and if not exercised well, a person has to suffer extensively.
Well, we can't change what has happened especially in the year 2020 but it will be crucial to keep an eye on what is going to happen in the next 5 years of the future of data protection around the world. We've compiled a list of a few expected changes ahead shortly in the area of data protection and privacy control.
Changes in Data Protection Roles
The existing team of data protection personnel is working hard and is appreciable, but looking at the needed level of protection, these roles have to be increased in number. Managing data, keeping its privacy intact, supervision of data privacy laws and right implementation of data privacy laws is not possible by one man.
There needs to be a team hence the data protection rules must be divided and a hierarchy should be made in this regard. This leads to better execution of plans and policies. Roles like Data Protection Officer, Chief Information Officer, Data Security Manager, etc designations must be entrusted to the right and eligible personnel.
Implementation of Multi-Standard Compliance Tools
There is a very thin line of difference between privacy and security. Both the concepts have common roles and responsibilities. The big idea behind both theories of GDPR is the same and so can be merged.
These should be aligned with other compliance standards and regulations. Hence it will be cost-effective and time-saving to incorporate common multi-standards for data security and privacy management. This will help big daddies to manage a single tool for managing multiple laws into one.
More Stringent Laws
In all countries, some laws are already established for protecting the privacy of data holders. The GDPR and other privacy protection regulations have a great impact on the entire data privacy subject however, something is still missing which has to be filled. Many countries have started working on bringing needed privacy changes in the data protection ecosystem and many are still in progress.
Private data needs more security because it contains some very confidential and personal information. A survey on this behalf has established that more than 60% of the world's population has got covered by some of the other privacy laws.
Here (to understand the seriousness of the topic in question) it is worth mentioning the recent 'Brexit' chaos in the U.K. Currently the regulations of GDPR have not been followed by the U.K. It would be interesting to see what privacy changes will be done by the U.K.
More Digitalization, More Digital Threats as Well
Everything has become online these days, from shopping to playing casino games. Along with raising the level of privacy and data protection, there is also a need to escape and defend our data and privacy from intruders and threats.
In the last year due to the Covid outbreak, WFH (Work-From-Home) has changed the entire working style of the corporate world. Everything becomes online and so the chances of data being exposed to malicious hackers, attackers, and intruders increases.
Not only the outsiders but data becomes easy prey for insiders also. There are many reasons behind this but the prominent one is working and accessing data from unsecured networks.
Employees, investors, families, friends of employees, etc are easily able to access confidential and personal data of companies which makes them vulnerable to huge loss of information. iGaming companies like Scanteam invest huge amounts in data security to keep their data safe and research gambling addiction statistics.
Role of Government and Authorities
Brands, corporates, and individuals will take utmost care of their privacy and data as it is always said "precautions are better than cure ''. So, undoubtedly in the coming years, we will see everyone very cautious regarding data sharing, accessing, and network usage.
However, authorities and governments countrywide have to play impeccable roles to make sure that the flow of data across the world wide web will be 100% safe and secure. To do this, there will be many necessary and strict decisions to be made.
From major changes in privacy policy to adopting a people-centric approach everything is gonna be in favor of keeping privacy intact, which should be the ultimate goal of the authorities.
If you like to learn more about data protection, you can check articles written by Alex Lysak.
Conclusion
Data is important and protecting it is even more important. This is the lesson we have learned from the past 2 years (post-pandemic) when almost the whole world was doing things online.
A lot of changes were already done by the majority of countries in their data privacy areas and many more are to come from the year 2021 to 2025. It wouldn't be wrong to call the future of data protection about to revolutionize.