Data minimization is the principle of collecting, processing and storing only the necessary amount of personal information required for a specific purpose. The principle emanates from the realisation that processing unnecessary data is creating unnecessary risks for the data subject without creating any current benefit or value. The risks of processing personal data vary from identity theft to unreliable inferences resulting in incorrect, wrongful and potentially dangerous decisions.
The principle of data minimization is a global, universal principle of data protection, and can thus be found in almost every legal or regulatory text on data protection/privacy.
The Data Protection Directive, officially Directive 95/46/EC, enacted in October 1995, was a European Union directive which regulated the processing of personal data within the European Union (EU) and the free movement of such data. The Data Protection Directive was an important component of EU privacy and human rights law.
The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom designed to protect personal data stored on computers or in an organised paper filing system. It enacted provisions from the European Union (EU) Data Protection Directive 1995 on the protection, processing, and movement of data.
The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act is a Canadian law relating to data privacy. It governs how private sector organizations collect, use and disclose personal information in the course of commercial business. In addition, the Act contains various provisions to facilitate the use of electronic documents. PIPEDA became law on 13 April 2000 to promote consumer trust in electronic commerce. The act was also intended to reassure the European Union that the Canadian privacy law was adequate to protect the personal information of European citizens. In accordance with section 29 of PIPEDA, Part I of the Act must be reviewed by Parliament every five years. The first Parliamentary review occurred in 2007.
A privacy policy is a statement or legal document that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client's data. Personal information can be anything that can be used to identify an individual, not limited to the person's name, address, date of birth, marital status, contact information, ID issue, and expiry date, financial records, credit information, medical history, where one travels, and intentions to acquire goods and services. In the case of a business, it is often a statement that declares a party's policy on how it collects, stores, and releases personal information it collects. It informs the client what specific information is collected, and whether it is kept confidential, shared with partners, or sold to other firms or enterprises. Privacy policies typically represent a broader, more generalized treatment, as opposed to data use statements, which tend to be more detailed and specific.
Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person.
Information privacy, data privacy or data protection laws provide a legal framework on how to obtain, use and store data of natural persons. The various laws around the world describe the rights of natural persons to control who is using its data. This includes usually the right to get details on which data is stored, for what purpose and to request the deletion in case the purpose is not given anymore.
Privacy law is a set of regulations that govern the collection, storage, and utilization of personal information from healthcare, governments, companies, public or private entities, or individuals.
Information sensitivity is the control of access to information or knowledge that might result in loss of an advantage or level of security if disclosed to others. Loss, misuse, modification, or unauthorized access to sensitive information can adversely affect the privacy or welfare of an individual, trade secrets of a business or even the security and international relations of a nation depending on the level of sensitivity and nature of the information.
Information technology risk, IT risk, IT-related risk, or cyber risk is any risk relating to information technology. While information has long been appreciated as a valuable and important asset, the rise of the knowledge economy and the Digital Revolution has led to organizations becoming increasingly dependent on information, information processing and especially IT. Various events or incidents that compromise IT in some way can therefore cause adverse impacts on the organization's business processes or mission, ranging from inconsequential to catastrophic in scale.
Canadian privacy law is derived from the common law, statutes of the Parliament of Canada and the various provincial legislatures, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Perhaps ironically, Canada's legal conceptualization of privacy, along with most modern legal Western conceptions of privacy, can be traced back to Warren and Brandeis’s "The Right to Privacy" published in the Harvard Law Review in 1890, Holvast states "Almost all authors on privacy start the discussion with the famous article 'The Right to Privacy' of Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis".
The United States Commission's fair information practice principles (FIPPs) are guidelines that represent widely accepted concepts concerning fair information practice in an electronic marketplace.
The German Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (BDSG) is a federal data protection act, that together with the data protection acts of the German federated states and other area-specific regulations, governs the exposure of personal data, which are manually processed or stored in IT systems.
Privacy by design is an approach to systems engineering initially developed by Ann Cavoukian and formalized in a joint report on privacy-enhancing technologies by a joint team of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (Canada), the Dutch Data Protection Authority, and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research in 1995. The privacy by design framework was published in 2009 and adopted by the International Assembly of Privacy Commissioners and Data Protection Authorities in 2010. Privacy by design calls for privacy to be taken into account throughout the whole engineering process. The concept is an example of value sensitive design, i.e., taking human values into account in a well-defined manner throughout the process.
The General Data Protection Regulation, abbreviated GDPR, or French RGPD is a European Union regulation on information privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and human rights law, in particular Article 8(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. It also governs the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA. The GDPR's goals are to enhance individuals' control and rights over their personal information and to simplify the regulations for international business. It supersedes the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and, among other things, simplifies the terminology.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner administers the Privacy Act 2020. The Privacy Commissioner is entrusted to protect personal information of New Zealanders in accordance with the Privacy Act. Current Privacy Commissioner, Michael Webster, began his role in July 2022.
The Data Protection Act, 2012 is legislation enacted by the Parliament of the Republic of Ghana to protect the privacy and personal data of individuals. It regulates the process personal information is acquired, kept, used or disclosed by data controllers and data processors by requiring compliance with certain data protection principles. Non compliance with provisions of the Act may attract either civil liability, or criminal sanctions, or both, depending on the nature of the infraction. The Act also establishes a Data Protection Commission, which is mandated to ensure compliance with its provisions, as well as maintain the Data Protection Register.
A Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) is a process which assists organizations in identifying and managing the privacy risks arising from new projects, initiatives, systems, processes, strategies, policies, business relationships etc. It benefits various stakeholders, including the organization itself and the customers, in many ways. In the United States and Europe, policies have been issued to mandate and standardize privacy impact assessments.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) is a Hong Kong statutory body enforcing the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance.
Human rightsandencryption are often viewed as interlinked. Encryption can be a technology that helps implement basic human rights. In the digital age, the freedom of speech has become more controversial; however, from a human rights perspective, there is a growing awareness that encryption is essential for a free, open, and trustworthy Internet.
The gathering of personally identifiable information (PII) refers to the collection of public and private personal data that can be used to identify individuals for various purposes, both legal and illegal. PII gathering is often seen as a privacy threat by data owners, while entities such as technology companies, governments, and organizations utilize this data to analyze consumer behavior, political preferences, and personal interests.