User data and privacy protection

Abstract

Private information is any piece of information related to an identifiable living person or individual. Throughout the years, privacy laws were created to protect the privacy of people and lately, their private data as well. Thanks to the technological advancements of computers, mobile phones, gadgets with the combination of the Internet, and most people are unaware that information is collected at astonishing speed and without knowing where and how their personal information is being used. The General Data Protection Regulation was designed for all companies and organisations working on EU private data to have a unified set of rules and requirements, as well as harsh administrative fines and penalties in case of infringement. This thesis will focus on the complexity of the GDPR and privacy laws in general, the lack of common guidelines for implementing private data protection and standards with the necessary know-how (it was possible to denote little to no such guidelines available through articles searches), and no prior controls for how private information is processed, in case of data breaches, private information can be leaked with all the consequences that this entails. Not only programmers but all parties involved need to be aware of the problems that weak data protection is causing. This can be partially solved with the establishment of easy-to-understand guidelines and the creation of assessment bodies that will take care of checking whether or not a particular company can safely process private data using the principles on which the GDPR is based upon and – of course – the most secure encryption methods available today.