Data Privacy Week is an international effort that takes place annually to create awareness about the importance of safeguarding data and enabling trust in an effort to protect individuals’ privacy.

This year, Data Privacy Week takes place from January 24 to 28, 2022. The National Cybersecurity Alliance is focusing on encouraging individuals to own their privacy by learning more about protecting their data, and is encouraging organizations to respect privacy.

Here are our top 5 tips for data privacy in 2022:

1. Manage your privacy: assess what information is being collected, how it is being used and what authority exists to manage these processes (such as your consent). Be thoughtful about who gets what information, particularly if it’s not required or relevant for the services they are offering
2. Consider the tradeoff between privacy and convenience. Use different passwords and security questions and enable multi-factor authentication wherever possible, especially on accounts with sensitive information
3. Delete unused apps on your devices and keep others secure by performing updates
4. If your organization collects other people’s data, think about data retention periods. Once they end, get rid of data you no longer need, because it becomes a liability and an unnecessary expense
5. Adopt a privacy framework so that you can manage risk and create a culture of privacy at your organization. Educate everyone in the organization and engage them in considering how privacy and data security applies to the work they do on a daily basis

Participants of this year’s privacy week have provided free resources. Here are our favorites:

1. Tips on how to get involved in Data Privacy Week 2022: https://staysafeonline.org/data-privacy-week/get-involved/
2. Personal information infographic: https://www.stopthinkconnect.org/resources/preview/privacy-tips-infographic
3. Cookies podcast: Tips to up your privacy game https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2021/10/27/few-easy-tips-your-privacy-game-david-sherry
4. Privacy Commissioner of Ontario Privacy Day Webcast: https://www.ipc.on.ca/event/ipc-privacy-day-webcast/

If you are interested in joining our community of Health Privacy Officers called The Shush – click here.