Data Privacy Day/Data Protection Day takes places at the end of January each year, with this year’s happening on 28th January 2023.
It’s a day that is recognised in the US, Canada, Nigeria, Israel and 47 countries in Europe, with a view to helping raise awareness of data privacy.
How much do you think about your data privacy online?
Often, we are all complacent. We believe that we exist in a little bubble, and yet we reveal so much information about ourselves that we often put our data at risk.
Let’s just start with Facebook.
Facebook is a good place to interact with friends, see what they’re up to, and connect with people you haven’t spoken to in a while.
You might log on and find that it’s someone’s birthday. You leave a post on their wall – happy birthday! – and they reply thanking you, and that they can’t believe they’ve turned 40.
Suddenly, you have their full date of birth.
A few months later, they post a link to Rightmove or Zoopla, because they’re trying to sell their house.
Now you have their address.
Then they comment on their Facebook memories, and it’s a photo of a childhood dog. They declare that they always loved that dog.
Now you have their first pet for a security question. You might also have their passwords – Fido123! maybe?
It is so, so easy to reveal information about yourself online if you aren’t careful – and Data Privacy Day 2023 will aim to help educate people on better behaviours, and how to take control of their data.
GDPR and private investigations
GDPR is a hugely important piece of legislation regarding personal data privacy and security, and it pays to make yourself more aware of your rights.
Private investigators are now naturally more hamstrung by the stringent rules around GDPR – and that’s a good thing. At least it is for an honest PI. We want to work by-the-book, and while personal data about someone is now harder to access, we only want to read what we should be legally able to.
Despite that, you should still look into which companies hold your personal data, and what information they have about you. While nobody is allowed to request a full list of your information from a company without your written permission, if you have data that lives under someone else’s file
Say it’s a business you’ve worked at, and your name is mentioned on another employee’s records because of interactions you’ve had with them – that person could request their data, or a PI might do so on their behalf. And while the company should make reasonable efforts to redact your info, they might mess up.
Also, don’t assume that a private investigator now can’t achieve the goals you have in mind if you’re in need of help. Just because we have to abide by GDPR, we still have plenty of resources and tools available to us if we’re doing an investigation into a potential cheating partner, or background checks into a new employee.
We can always start with Facebook, after all.
Give us a call on 01772 334700 if you need the help of a private investigator, and read more about Data Protection Day here.