It’s always a boost to have a day to dedicated to spreading awareness about best privacy practices.  Every day, peoples’ personal information is digitally shared and collected and everyone has the right to be concerned with exactly how the information is being collected and shared. Data Privacy Day is meant to do just that- let people know how their information is being collected, stored, used, and shared.  The awareness of privacy doesn’t just apply at the consumer level but also at businesses, state and federal government levels.  They need to rethink and question if they are doing enough to protect data privacy and if they are complying with consumer protection laws. 

In today’s highly vulnerable online corporate environments, implementing IT security has become a top priority and companies take the matter of protecting and securing their customers’ data quite seriously.  Embarrassing security breaches not only prove costly to a company’s reputation and bottom line, some can even go out of business.  Protecting personal data is not just a corporate responsibility, it is also up to individuals to be aware of what they can do personally to keep their personal data safe and secure.  For many of us, clicking on that link in our online banking web session that advertises the latest and greatest in identity protection is too often seen as just that – an advertisement.  Just like in the corporate environment where data protection is of utmost importance, and ever evolving, this mindset needs to reach to us as consumers as well. After all, the most probable help to drowning people is expected from drowning people themselves.

More information on Privacy Data Day can be found at http://www.staysafeonline.org/dpd/about