Understanding The Difference Between Data Privacy And Data Protection
Ensure your organisation remains compliant with global data protection and privacy laws whilst maintaining robust protections for data security.
Rampant cybercrime and costly data breaches in an increasingly digitised economy necessitate strong, compliant data privacy protection and top-notch data security. What is the difference between data privacy and data protection? How is privacy related to data protection and how can organisations remain compliant?
As global leaders in IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) and pioneers of the Circular Economy in the ITAD industry through reuse and remarketing services for IT assets, Wisetek has the expertise needed to help enterprises maintain data security, which in turn can help organisations adhere to their privacy policy and data protection guidelines.
What is Data Privacy Protection?
Every organisation should have data protection and privacy ethical guidelines in place, but what are they exactly? Data protection is a term used to denote three main categories related to data, namely:
- Traditional Data Protection: data retention, backups and storage, RAID erasure coding, and the physical IT infrastructure.
- Data Security: authentication and encryption of data, controlled access, data breach response, and prevention of data loss.
- Data Privacy: policies and legislation, best practices, global data privacy regulations, and governance.
Data privacy protection is therefore a subset of data protection, which includes data security as well. Privacy is a right that is recognised by various legal frameworks and constitutions around the world, of which data privacy has emerged in recent decades to include the rights related to personal and private data.
More specifically, various regulations around the world such as GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA all have their own definitions for data privacy protection. Generally, the definitions all outline the various rights to data privacy for individual end-users as well as the responsibilities of organisations to uphold data privacy.
Key Differences Between Data Protection and Data Privacy
What is data privacy and security, what do they have in common and what are the key differences between the two? These terms are often loosely used interchangeably, and they do have many similarities and overlaps, but they are distinct and separate.
Data protection, as mentioned in the previous section, includes both data security and data privacy. It is, therefore, worth outlining the differences between these two latter terms to see how they fit into a data protection framework:
- Data security: the protection of data from malicious threats, both internal and external to the organisation. Preventing unauthorised access and monitoring and controlling access, regardless of the user or their intentions, are examples of data security practices.
- Data privacy: considers the informed consent of end-users and their private data as well as the responsible and compliant collection and sharing of data between users, the organisation, and/or third parties.
The two terms differ fundamentally when considering which data is protected, how it is protected, and from whom it is being protected.
Data security should not discriminate and equally secure the IT infrastructure and network against data from being accessed without authorisation, regardless of who is trying to access it.
Data privacy discriminates insofar that the end-user must provide consent to their data being used by the organisation in a compliant manner and thus access to their private data must be limited to only those who have given or been given that consent.
How Data Privacy and Security Work in Practice
Organisations must have in place both data privacy and data security protocols, best practices, and exercise due diligence concerning data privacy protection. Although the two are separate, they are dependent upon one another, i.e. an organisation with no data security cannot uphold data privacy compliance. In brief, data privacy is dependent upon data security.
This is made evident by the rapid rise in data breaches, occurring at a greater severity and frequency than ever before. Data breaches expose sensitive data (thus breaching data privacy) such as customer addresses, names, credit card information and more, but they come through cracks in data security either through malware, phishing, or accessing data from discarded hard drives, for example.
Data Privacy & Data Protection vs Regulatory Compliance
Data privacy protection is a must-have for organisations to remain secure and to uphold the data privacy between them, their clients, and their customers. It has also been enacted in regulations around the world, resulting in not only an internal incentive for organisations to maintain compliance but legal incentives that exist as well.
The full list of data privacy protection regulations is exhaustive, but some of the major US and EU privacy and data protection regulations include:
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): applicable to residents of the EU since 2016 and to any organisation that collects or shares data of EU residents, including organisations that are located outside of the EU but conduct commercial activity therein.
- California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA): an important California regulation that, like the GDPR, outlines data protection and how it should be secured and managed for Californians.
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA): a well-known and often misspelt regulation from the US that regulates the data privacy protection of healthcare information for Americans, including medications, surgical operations, and more.
How to Adhere to Data Protection & Data Privacy Laws
There are many methods of maintaining compliance with data privacy protection regulations and laws, such as workshops and training for employees on best practices and corporate policy, implementing robust cybersecurity infrastructure, and more.
One crucial method that should not be overlooked is the safe and secure disposal of end-of-life (EoL) IT assets. Discarded laptops, mobile phones, hard drives, and data centre equipment are all risk vectors for data privacy and security breaches.
Wisetek provides secure global ITAD services and IT Solutions that help organisations maintain strict compliance, wherever they operate around the world. As an ITAD Company with a global reach and fully auditable processes, clients can rely on our expertise in Data Centre Decommissioning, secure Data Destruction methods, and environmentally friendly Hard Drive Disposal due to our Sustainable Earth initiative and Zero-Landfill Policy.
Why ITAD is Essential for Regulatory Compliance
ITAD should always be considered by organisations as an essential method of maintaining regulatory compliance with data privacy protection legislation as well as for maintaining internal corporate data security and privacy.
Wisetek provides value through efficient and environmentally-friendly ITAD services and Data Centre Services, but organisations can also rest assured that all sensitive data is thoroughly destroyed with video verification and data destruction certificates provided – no piece of equipment is unaccounted for.
Moreover, every effort is undertaken to divert e-waste from landfills and to instead refurbish and remarket EoL IT assets. This helps the environment whilst also maximising the ROI of corporate devices. Many of these remarketed products can be found at our new eCommerce business, Wisetek Store. The Wisetek Store was created to offer consumers high quality, reliable and affordable refurbished devices, to an “as new” standard. Products available on this new website include a host of premium refurbished devices, including refurbished laptops, refurbished tablets, refurbished desktops, refurbished monitors, refurbished phones and refurbished MacBooks.
Maintain Compliance to Data Privacy Protection with Wisetek
Wisetek are global experts in ITAD with a strong and dependable emphasis on data privacy protection and data security. Our data destruction and data protection processes as well as our disposal methods adhere to the strict guidelines increasingly being enacted and enforced by governments and regulations around the world.
We welcome you to get in touch and discover more about our services and the value we provide.
For more information, please contact enquiries@wisetek.net or visit our website.
Visit Wisetek Store for more information on purchasing our premium refurbished products.
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