The marvelous IoT way of life has become more of a norm rather than a novelty. We all love to purchase online, surf the internet, or send gifs and chat with our friends from another side of the globe. However, every Yin has its Yang. When signing up for a platform or buying from a company, we provide highly valuable personal data that are targeted to multiple malicious attackers.

Unfortunately, there are always hostile intentions that we need to fight against. To shield our personal information we need data privacy and data protection. These two might sound identical at first glance. The truth is, they are completely different, but complementary. After reading this article, this distinction will become more clear to you so you can take better care of the collected data.

Let’s solve that data privacy vs data protection mystery!

1. What are the definitions?

Due to the data term, you might assume, both data privacy and data protection imply actions taken toward handling specific kinds of data. However, their techniques are quite different. Data privacy is an umbrella term for data collection, processing, and storage. In other words, for any type of private data handling. On the other hand, data protection or security are the techniques and systems used to keep the shared data safe.

Data privacy is concerned with people’s right to have full control over their data. However, there are third-party intruders, such as hackers, that make getting that control even harder. Data protection is there to make that idea into reality.

Imagine you are inside your house. Everything inside is your private information. You voluntarily decide to invite your friends to visit you and share that privacy. For any unwanted guest, you have a door to protect you. Data protection is exactly that door.

2. Can you have data privacy without data protection?

It is extremely important to safeguard collected data. Why would customers give you their data if they know it is going to be stolen or sold, right? While data privacy defines who has authorized access to data, data protection guarantees compliance with that policy. Therefore, you can’t have true privacy without true protection. These two are parts of one powerful data control mechanism that like any other system doesn’t work properly if one part is missing.

3. Who has control over your data?

The answer is you. You are the main data controller and the data policies such as HIPPA and  GDPR ensure you that right. However, when you give consent to a company to access and store your data, you give authorization to another data controller.

Now, there are two legal controllers. Depending on the policies that apply in your country, you and the chosen company will have certain rights regarding further data processing. Any other third party is seen as an unauthorized private body responsible for data misuse or in the worst case could be viewed as a hacker.

Before the digital world, there was a theft, too. Now, we just fight a bit differently, virtually against it.

4. Data regulations and methods

The connection between the imposed data regulations and data safeguarding methods forms another data privacy vs data protection riddle. When thinking about data privacy, you can understand it as a concept that incorporates certain policies. Those policies can be corporate and government-made. For instance, if your company operates in a certain country you must check first their data privacy policy regulations before starting to collect any kind of personal data.  

When you have complied with all the regulations, now you only need to protect your database from cyber-attacks. To make it secure there are certain steps that you need to take. They include monitoring of activities, control over data accessibility, network security inspection, encryption, breach response, and multi-factor authentication. Create this checklist now to minimize problems later.

5. With whom you can share your data

By giving consent for data usage, people approve certain actions. They decide what will be the legitimate purposes of data collection and a company needs to stick to them. In case there are contract changes, companies are required to inform their customers about them. After receiving the updates, a consumer can extend their cooperation or withdraw their consent. That is how people can control data usage and ensure that their data is in the right hands.

6. Safety steps: data misuse and hacks

Data mishandling or misuse is not the same as hacking. In this data privacy vs data protection debate, one of them is a bit easier to deal with. Data privacy allows you to control how an authorized company uses your details. You have an overview of their actions and in case you have any doubts you can request a specific review.

If they decide to sell or share your data without your approval, they are becoming a data misuser and can face giant penalties. Due to your control options and rights, you have more tools to avoid this.

On the other hand, data protection deals with any type of hacker out there. If a data breach occurs, both you and the company are the victims and the hacker needs to be identified as soon as possible to stop further damages.

7. Who should be on your data expert team?

As data privacy vs data protection is a subject of the highest importance, at the same level as your revenue, you need a team of data experts that will guarantee that everything is working like it should. This team will focus on protecting the organization’s assets.

Thus, the experts you choose should have a background in law, policy creation, and at least basic engineering. Lastly, they should be people who are aware of how big a responsibility they have. You probably don’t want to deal with fines due to a failure to comply with data privacy rules, right?

8. Privacy and protection are the tasks that can’t be skipped

Without an established data privacy and protection policy you risk losing the business you spent years building. One single data breach can cost you in damaged reputation and customer relationships. An average data breach can cost you as much as $8,19 million, or even more. Would you like to avoid this risk?

9. Is there a customer support platform that provides both data privacy and data protection?

The answer is YES! What differentiates Helpy from other customer support platforms is a focus on compliance and data protection. With Helpy private cloud solution, you are the boss of your own data storage. There is no need to deal with troubles that might arise due to storing your data on the shared servers with millions of users anymore.

Helpy is the latest customer service technology solution that goes many steps ahead of the traditional shared-cloud platforms. Nowadays, when all the countries are becoming more strict regarding data privacy and protection regulations, you should too.

To request a demo version click here.

We look forward to meeting you!