Data Protection and Security

I

Introduction to Information Security

I.II

Common Information Security Targets

Privacy and Anonymity

Privacy: Ability to control the availability and use of personal information.

Privacy and confidentiality are not the same. As an example consider the case when you register yourself to a free email service. The email service you are registering is likely to ask you some personal information (why?) or collect some others without asking (e.g., your IP address). Confidentiality is an issue while the information you have entered is transmitted to the other site so that no third party can read it. On the other hand, for the intended recipient (email company) your personal information is no longer confidential but you might want to have privacy and limit the use of personal information only for specific purposes (as explained in the company’s privacy policy) e.g., you do not want the email company to sell your email address to some spammers.

Note that once you provide your personal information to the company, there are not much technical measures to prevent the other party from abusing it. However you may react after you detect any violations of the company’s privacy policy.