According to the definition, Information (Data) Privacy is a relationship between collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, and the legal and political issues surrounding them.
Today the issue comes more and more important as the amount of collected and stored personally identifiable information arise. Maybe You have never imagined that the privacy can be violated in lot of zones, not only your address, phone number or ID can be used. It considers also your biological traits, financial stage, people you meet, health state etc. The challenge in data privacy is how to protect personally identifiable information while sharing data.
As the theme of Information Privacy becomes more common, the law in many countries in the world tries to answer the need of regulation in this field ( eg. UK, USA, AUS ). In Poland there is a loud discussion today where is the border line between data retention desired for keeping safety and the invigilation. European Union has imposed the directive regulating the issue of protection of personal data.
However there are still many discussions if the shape of it is correct and acceptable.
Besides the debatable aspects of the domestic and international law in the world regulating personal data restoring and protection there is no doubt that there are some dangers coming from our personal Information kept not safely.
One of this is Identity Theft. It is more possible today when in common use the Internet is. Before providing more information about it I would like to present a short film.
Maybe while watching it you have been wondering what does connect this film with the problem of privacy in the Web. I will try to explain it in a few words.
Even though that the film is the parody of the movie and the problem of cloning, it shows that everyone can steal your identity and such situation may be danger, irritating and frustrating. And this may happen via the Internet –it is enough to get just few information about you and someone can destroy your life.
This is the power of modern shape of the Net.
In all areas of your life in which you share your personal information in, you are a potential victim. I am not saying about the hackers –they have to be the specialists and have important reasons for stealing your identity. Moreover we use all the securities to save our data. I suggest that sometimes the bigger danger for us are the people who we know personally in the real world.
For example, the case of social media is completely accessible for those of your friends who want to do you harm. Such case happened to my friend. Someone created HIS account on social portal . This person used the profile to send false messages to the other people. The result was that my friend had large problems with them and he did not know the reason. When he discovered the problem he had to create the real account and to rectify the situation. The basic cause of situations like this is poor level of information privacy in the Internet and possibility of creating accouts knowing just basic data like name, which are not verifiable.
Another problem which we often are not aware of is that we ourselves place our personal data, information and photos in the Web. Somebody who follows our account on social portal knows nearly everything about us. Such a person has all necessary data to steal our identity- it so easy then and we are partly responsible for it.
I do not want to scare you or discourage to the Internet. I only want to give the information on such danger like identity theft and sensitize you to such problem. Maybe we should give more efforts to check info which we receive and place in the Net.
