PrivacyPrivacy (UK, US) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of appropriate use and protection of information. Privacy may also take the form of bodily integrity. There have been many different conceptions of privacy throughout history. Most cultures recognize the right of an individual to withhold aspects of their personal lives from public record.
Privacy lawPrivacy law is the body of law that deals with the regulating, storing, and using of personally identifiable information, personal healthcare information, and financial information of individuals, which can be collected by governments, public or private organisations, or other individuals. It also applies in the commercial sector to things like trade secrets and the liability that directors, officers, and employees have when handing sensitive information.
Right to privacyThe right to privacy is an element of various legal traditions that intends to restrain governmental and private actions that threaten the privacy of individuals. Over 150 national constitutions mention the right to privacy. On 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), originally written to guarantee individual rights of everyone everywhere; while right to privacy does not appear in the document, many interpret this through Article 12, which states: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.
Data Protection DirectiveThe Data Protection Directive, officially Directive 95/46/EC, enacted in October 1995, was a European Union directive which regulated the processing of personal data within the European Union (EU) and the free movement of such data. The Data Protection Directive was an important component of EU privacy and human rights law. The principles set out in the Data Protection Directive were aimed at the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms in the processing of personal data.
Information privacyInformation privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as data privacy or data protection. Data privacy is challenging since attempts to use data while protecting an individual's privacy preferences and personally identifiable information. The fields of computer security, data security, and information security all design and use software, hardware, and human resources to address this issue.
General Data Protection RegulationThe General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679, abbreviated GDPR) is a European Union regulation on Information privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and human rights law, in particular Article 8(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. It also governs the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA.
National data protection authorityThere are several national data protection authorities across the world, tasked with protecting information privacy. In the European Union and the EFTA member countries, their status was formalized by the Data Protection Directive and they were involved in the Madrid Resolution. This project is a part of the work of the International Law Commission of the United Nations. On the European level, it is the G29 and the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS).
Privacy by designPrivacy by design is an approach to systems engineering initially developed by Ann Cavoukian and formalized in a joint report on privacy-enhancing technologies by a joint team of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (Canada), the Dutch Data Protection Authority, and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research in 1995. The privacy by design framework was published in 2009 and adopted by the International Assembly of Privacy Commissioners and Data Protection Authorities in 2010.
Privacy engineeringPrivacy engineering is an emerging field of engineering which aims to provide methodologies, tools, and techniques to ensure systems provide acceptable levels of privacy. In the US, an acceptable level of privacy is defined in terms of compliance to the functional and non-functional requirements set out through a privacy policy, which is a contractual artifact displaying the data controlling entities compliance to legislation such as Fair Information Practices, health record security regulation and other privacy laws.
Vulnerability (computing)Vulnerabilities are flaws in a computer system that weaken the overall security of the device/system. Vulnerabilities can be weaknesses in either the hardware itself, or the software that runs on the hardware. Vulnerabilities can be exploited by a threat actor, such as an attacker, to cross privilege boundaries (i.e. perform unauthorized actions) within a computer system. To exploit a vulnerability, an attacker must have at least one applicable tool or technique that can connect to a system weakness.
Information securityInformation security, sometimes shortened to InfoSec, is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data or the unlawful use, disclosure, disruption, deletion, corruption, modification, inspection, recording, or devaluation of information. It also involves actions intended to reduce the adverse impacts of such incidents.
Internet privacyInternet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storage, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and display of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing and especially relate to mass surveillance enabled by the emergence of computer technologies. Privacy can entail either personally identifiable information (PII) or non-PII information such as a site visitor's behaviour on a website.
