Daily, around 2,200 cyber attacks globally occur due to ignorance and a lack of awareness. Each attack is a reminder that we need to increase public awareness of the need to protect their data. What people need to safeguard their data is privacy by design.
The Need to Empower Users
We live in an environment where technology is changing rapidly, and adapting to these innovations is not an easy task. More and more people have started using smartphones, and very few know what is happening. The same goes for personal data. The problem before the arrival of the GDPR was that the awareness and interest in these issues were almost zero for users. The technology used on these products is not accessible and understandable by all, and the consequences are not concrete.
The 7 Laws of Privacy by Design
Privacy by design has 7 foremost laws which we also know as “laws of identity”:
- Be proactive, and don’t wait until your data leaks.
- The protection of personal data must be a default setting. Protection of any information or data is a must, regardless of its nature.
- The design must include protective measures; it is not just another plug-in in the system that adds privacy.
- It must be “fully functional”. the user must not get any penalty by disabling permissions.
- It has to be end-to-end security, so its end-to-end encryption is a requirement, and users know what’s going on.
- They need to be able to access this information and be it open, documented, and available with points of contact.
- Keeping the user at the center of his initiatives, the user is our client and not our advertising agency.
Privacy by Design in Design, Implementation and Execution
Now, how does this translate into practice? From the designing stage, it is necessary to begin to integrate privacy into the service and to list the points to control. Each time a new feature is added, it must be ensured that this feature and the elements fulfill the requirements of the checklist.
In execution, care must be taken to collect the only data that is needed. We must also ensure:
- Minimizing data exchanged with third-party services.
- Pseudonymizing the data.
- Checking the forms. At each data entry, data is created. If you add a new field, go back through the checklist step and ask your user for consent.
- Deleting the collected data regularly. The data has a lifetime; once it is no longer relevant, remove it from the database.
- Providing users with simple adjustments and clear instructions.
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