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Europe celebrates history of data protection
Europe has a rich history of protecting data, and on Jan. 28 they have a special day to prove it. The European Union's annual Data Protection Day commemorates the importance of securing data and the need to continue good security practice. As EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said, "I wish to see full speed on data protection in 2014."
A history of security concerns
Protection Day was first celebrated eight years ago, according to Computing. But its genesis goes back more than 30 years, to the Jan. 28, 1981 Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Processing of Personal Data. The Convention, which was held in Strasborg, France, sought to prevent any personal data from "unauthorized access, alteration, or dissemination," according to the Convention's official Treaties.
The Convention laid out a series of principles for the upholding of personal data security in the European Union. Among these were requests that data be processed fairly and with sensitivity to personal information, and that privileged information be subject to special security measures preventing it from being breached or otherwise abused.
The personal security standards laid out in the Convention have been upheld by the European Commission. Two years ago, the Commission took proactive steps to implement more stringent personal security measures across the entire continent. Those measures included modifying Europe's data protection rules to better meet the needs of the 21st century and implementing monetary penalties for independent companies that breached the rules. There was also an added focus on web security, since the Internet has of course assumed a position of significance that it did not have back in 1981.
"The internet has created this huge shift," Council of Europe's data protection head Sophie Kwasny told Computing. "There's a tension between American firms - because most of the internet players are US firms - with a different vision of how this is to be done, so balancing both isn't easy,"
This year, a focus on the changing face of security
Also accompanying this year's Protection Day is a push by Commissioner Reding to enact even harsher penalties for independent companies that breach the European Union's data privacy laws. The proposed modification to the penalty system would ramp the fines for independent organizations that breach European privacy standards to up to 5 percent of that company's global annual turnover.
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