Today is 'European Data Protection Day'. Never heard of it? That may be because everyone is talking about data protection but there are many opinions what that actually is.
The Data Protection Day is a data protection action day launched on the initiative of the Council of Europe. Since 2007, it has been held annually around 28 January. This date was chosen because the a convention on the topic (1) was signed on 28 January 1981. The aim of the Data Protection Day is to raise European citizens' awareness of data protection. This will be done through actions by all organisations responsible for data protection.
In 2008, the United States and Canada joined the European Commission initiative. Since then, these states have been celebrating the Data Privacy Day at the same time.
Data protection is a term developed in the second half of the 20th century that is defined and interpreted in different ways. Sometimes the terms data protection, information privacy and others are used. Many words and many definitions. Data protection is often understood as the right that each person can decide for themselves when and to whom which of their personal data should be accessible.
Terms such as information society, mass surveillance or surveillance state are only some of the different topics and points of view. And then there are the individual human beings. Theoretically, of course, the security of their data is important to them, but on the other hand, working with secure, regularly exchanged passwords is annoying in daily life.
(1) "Convention for the protection of individuals with regard to automatic processing of personal data"
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