Your data privacy is slipping away – here’s why, and what you can do about it

  Cybersecurity and data privacy are constantly in the news. Governments are passing new cybersecurity laws. Companies are investing in cybersecurity controls such as firewalls, encryption, and awareness training at record levels.

  And yet, people are losing ground on data privacy.

  In 2024, the Identity Theft Resource Center reported that companies sent out 1.3 billion notifications to the victims of data breaches. That’s more than triple the notices sent out the year before. It’s clear that despite growing efforts, personal data breaches are not only continuing, but accelerating.

Your digital footprints are more than a privacy risk – they could help hackers infiltrate computer networks

  When you use the internet, you leave behind a trail of data, a set of digital footprints. These include your social media activities, web browsing behavior, health information, travel patterns, location maps, information about your mobile device use, photos, audio, and video. This data is collected, collated, stored, and analyzed by various organizations, from the big social media companies to app makers to data brokers. As you might imagine, your digital footprints put your privacy at risk, but they also affect cybersecurity.