Top 10 Privacy Trends for 2012
Privacy and Security professionals continue to grapple with data collection, use, and sharing practices – Privacy by Design? Meanwhile regulators will increase enforcement efforts. Here is a look into the foggy crystal-ball for 2012; sadly the New Year brings more of the same.
10. Read my Lips, No New Privacy Laws
Dysfunctional Congress remains at an impasse in an election year. So expect little movement on any meaningful privacy legislation: no comprehensive privacy law, no national data breach law, nothing on behavioral advertising. Oh wait plenty of new consumer privacy protections, just none in the United States.
9. Regulator Prowess Continues
Regulators with speculative authority will continue to interpret the law and implement new their interpretations of existing law.
8. More Charlie Sheen and Kim Kardashian
Media hungry celebrities continue to exploit the media to their financial gain or peril.
7. Just a Bill on Capitol Hill
HR 611 (Rush), SB 799 (Kerry/McCain), HR 1528 (Stearns, Matheson, Bilbray, Manzullo) are just an example of the stalled comprehensive privacy bills! Also festering are do-not-track bills: HR 654 (Speier) and SB 913 (Rockefeller). I think we all saw this coming; congressional leaders introduce privacy bills to illustrate to its constituents that privacy is important, but passing nothing so PAC money continues to flow into election campaigns.
6. Office Tweets Aren’t Just for Christmas Any More
Companies continue to see the business value of social media and loosen acceptable use policies. Thus allowing their employees to access the sites on business time and on business equipment. Strategically allowing employees to post on social media forums can improve brand awareness, but it doesn’t come without risk: loss of productivity, slanderous comments, loss of intellectual property, data breach. Better update your acceptable use policy!
5. Three words… Encrypt, Encrypt, Encrypt
Boot encryption on your laptop is no longer enough! Encrypt USB drives, CD-ROMs, DVDs, the cloud, the entire cloud? No longer can we just encrypt data in motion; exploits at the application level suggest it is now prudent to encrypt data at rest.
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