28th of January was Data Privacy Day, quite unknown to many people. Since its inception in 2007 by The Council of Europe, Data Privacy Day is being celebrated for the second time now in the US, Canada and 27 European countries. If you missed out on the celebrations this time, you better mark your calendar for next year, since this is soon going to be one of the ‘happening’ days of the year. Internet privacy is bound to become a huge issue in the coming years, and will probably amount to a large fraction of internet fraud suits to come. Here are the highlights for those who missed the boat:
Conferences on Internet Privacy were the order of the day with most organizations holding or sponsoring seminars in some way or the other. Intel hosted a seminar at the Duke University on Protecting National Security in the new US administration. Microsoft also hosted an interactive community in San Francisco Public Library which involved discussion about the concerns of internet privacy and how Microsoft can make things better. A Microsoft representative admitted that “more and more people are now conscious of maintaining privacy on the internet, but just needed a little help.†Microsoft also mentioned that IE8 would have advanced security features.
A conference was also held in the European Parliament, with M.E.P’s, data protection and internet privacy advocates and authorities, students and teachers. The European Schoolnet along with Microsoft and the European Economic and Social committee organized a video competition for kids aged 14-19 years called “Surf the Net – Think Privacyâ€.
In Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and CAPAPA held events – mainly discussions, conferences and seminars.
Forums and NGOs like the Electronic Frontier Forum, the Identity Theft Resource Center, the World Privacy Forum, the Berkeley Centre of Law and Technology and the Future of Privacy Forum have put forth suggestions to the Obama administration about what can be done to ensure better privacy for internet users in terms of better laws and lesser loop holes. These organizations have also put up information that consumers can use on their website. Microsoft has also put up a list of basic tools that users can use to protect themselves while browsing or surfing the internet.
