From the course: Cybersecurity Awareness: Cybersecurity Terminology

Understanding privacy

From the course: Cybersecurity Awareness: Cybersecurity Terminology

Understanding privacy

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- [Instructor] Another aspect of the human element of security is privacy and understanding how to protect your own information. Privacy in the purest sense means freedom from or protection of something. But how does that apply in terms of cybersecurity? Privacy, as related to cybersecurity, is the protection of your information. The main questions around privacy are usually what information of mine is being collected and stored? How is my data being used? And who has access to my data and can share it? Personally identifiable information, or PII, is information that is directly related to an individual that may be used to identify them. This can be broken down into two areas: sensitive, and non-sensitive PII. The best way to describe non-sensitive PII would be to think of it as information that is easily searchable or accessible to anyone should someone go looking. A simple internet search could provide such information on an individual. This includes but is not limited to your name, your birthday, and even your gender. While this information is not worrisome, if anonymized and accessed independently, it can be used to link other information and tie back to an individual, and that is where it becomes an issue of privacy. Since non-sensitive PII is easily accessible information, sensitive PII is information that should not be searchable or easily accessed. Someone should not simply be able to search for this information online and easily find it. For example, you probably don't want your personal medical information easily accessible to the public. So that is sensitive information. This breaks down into a number of categories that include but are not limited to Social Security number, passport and driver's license information, and even credit card and medical information as well. Many new laws and regulations have been implemented to help keep companies accountable for protecting this information. There is a certain expectation of companies to protect our information on our behalf. However, even with regulations and laws in place, it is imperative that individuals take their own privacy and PII, both sensitive and non-sensitive, and hold it in high regard to help add an extra layer of protection against information loss and exposure. You can do this by thinking before you share information, questioning why information requested is needed, removing any social media content that is no longer necessary, and updating your privacy settings, as well as searching your name regularly, and where you can, opting out or removing your information to make it private.

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