Tag: International Data Privacy Day

Data Privacy Day is January 28, 2011.

There have events throughout the week to inform and educate us all about our personal data rights and protections.

Here are some key reminders:

1. Never Post or Share Personal Information such as a date of birth, personal address, or maiden name because identity thieves now friend as many people as possible and join networks solely for the purpose of harvesting information to use to commit identity fraud.
2. Always Update Your Software
3. Use Complex Passwords
4. Don’t Download Just Any Application
5. Avoid Peer-to-Peer File Sharing

Read more:

• Data Privacy Day 2011
• The Technology of Privacy: When Geeks Meet Wonks from Google
• The top 5 mistakes of privacy awareness programs

Data Privacy Day is an annual international celebration to raise awareness and generate discussion about information privacy. Last year, both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives recognized January 28th, 2009 as National Data Privacy Day.

Intel, Microsoft, Google, AT&T, LexisNexis and The Privacy Projects are sponsoring Data Privacy Day efforts, with assistance from Intuit and Oracle.

Even if you are not responsible for privacy at the office, you are responsible for your kids. The Data Privacy Day 2010 has some great resources for Teens, Young Adults, and Parents & Kids. Take a look at the FTC’s You Are Here to see some of the problems faced by kids online. Make sure to Visit the Security Plaza to learn about protecting your privacy (online and off).

You are responsible for your own online activity. In looking at a recent data breach, “123456”, “12345”, “123456789” and password were the most common passwords. Even Twitter banned these passwords, along with 366 other obvious passwords.

A list of 32 million passwords that an unknown hacker stole last month from RockYou, a company that makes software for users of social networking sites, provided a treasure trove of information for security analysis. About 20 percent of people on the RockYou list picked from the same, relatively small pool of 5,000 passwords. Hackers could easily break into many accounts just by trying the most common passwords.

Security experts advise that a password should consist of letters, numbers and even punctuation symbols. They should be changed regularly and you should not use the same password for all your online services.

Sources:

• Imperva’s Customer password worst practices (.pdf)
• Previous post – International Data Privacy Day 2009
• If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It HackMe by Ashlee Vance for The New York Times
• Twitter bans 370 ‘obvious’ passwords in the Telegraph

January 28, 2009 is International Data Privacy Day. [Intel’s Collection of data privacy materials]. The United States, Canada, and 27 European countries will celebrate Data Privacy Day together for the second time. One of the primary goals of Data Privacy Day 2009 is to promote privacy awareness and education among teens across the United States. Data Privacy Day also serves the important purpose of furthering international collaboration and cooperation around privacy issues.

What can you do?:

• Show a recent theater movie that addresses the issue of privacy, such as “The Net,” “Swordfish,” or any of a large number of others, then afterward discuss the privacy and information security issues from within the movie and how they relate to your employees’ lives and/or work.
• Make a podcast available to your personnel that discusses privacy in general, or a specific privacy issue.
• Have a contest for your employees that incorporates privacy. For example give an award/prize to the person who can identify the most significant employee privacy concern within your organization
• Hold a “Privacy Jeopardy” event on 1/28 during lunchtime, perhaps right outside your cafeteria, and give small prizes or recognitions to the people who correctly answer a privacy related question.
• Distribute some privacy related articles, or make them available on your information security and privacy intranet sites.