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Data Privacy Month

January 23, 2012 | By Damon Armour, Assistant Director for Information Security/CISO, contributing writer

January is data privacy month. The Educause Policy group, an organization that promotes “productive government and campus IT policies and [manages] programs that directly assist campuses as they tackle enterprise technology and policy challenges,” is spreading the word to bring more awareness to data privacy during the month of January. Data privacy is not only important to our campus activities, but also vital to our personal lives. Awareness provides us the tools to protect how our information is collected, used, and shared by individuals, companies, and the government.

What is the history behind Data Privacy Month? According to Educause, “In January, the United States, Canada, and more than 40 countries will celebrate Data Privacy Day 2012. Designed to raise awareness about privacy as a right and as a responsibility in our digitally dependent and highly networked world, Data Privacy Day highlights the actions that corporations, governments, nonprofits, educators, and individuals can take to protect the privacy of personal information. In addition, the Data Privacy Day initiative provides educational resources and materials for young people, parents, educators, consumers, and businesses year round.”

So what does this mean for Augusta State University and other college campuses? “Privacy issues pervade university life, and administrators, staff, and professors must be informed about the steps they can take to protect information privacy. FERPA, social media and social networking, Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance, student health services, data security programs, e-mail networks, human resources’ responsibility for employee information, and educators’ incorporation of information sharing technologies into the classroom all present privacy issues for universities. You can use Data Privacy Day as an opportunity to provide privacy training for employees of the university, and to establish communication between your privacy office and others who need to connect and collaborate with your office on privacy issues.”

Educause Policy is providing multiple online learning sessions during the month of January. Some of those live presentations have already passed, but archived versions are available. The remaining presentations are:

1. January 25, 1-2 pm ET – We’re From the Government and We’re Here to Help You: Privacy Issues and Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Education

2. January 30, 1-2 pm ET – lol…OMG!: What Everyone Needs to Know About Online Reputation Management

More details on those presentations can be found at:http://www.educause.edu/policy/dataprivacy.

Also being offered during Data Privacy Month is Matt Ivester’s book lol…OMG! It can be downloaded for free from January 27-30 at:http://www.lolomgbook.com/#%21vstc5=ebook. lol…OMG! provides a cautionary look at the many ways that today’s students are experiencing the unanticipated negative consequences of their digital decisions from lost job opportunities and denied college and graduate school admissions to full-blown national scandals.

Additional Resources:

National Cyber Security Alliance – Data Privacy Day 2012 Intersection of Privacy & Security Facebook Live-stream