Here’s What You Need To Know About Data Privacy Day

You may or may not know, today is Data Privacy Day. Here's a short history of what it means and why it's celebrated. Get your party hats on. Not too long ago, polling in Europe reviewed how European citizens were less aware of their data-protection rights and weren’t fully privy to what it meant. To address this, in 2007, the Council of Europe along with the European Commission organized its very first Data Protection Day on Jan. 28. Broadly, it's wise for the U.S. to take its data protection cues from Europe. The U.S already celebrates Freedom of Information Day on March 16, a day that declared every person the right to federal information they are entitled to (but that's another story). Following the footsteps of Europe, in 2009 Rep. David Price, D-N.C. introduced the concept of Data Privacy Day which passed with unanimous votes and is now nationally celebrated on Jan. 28. The Data Avalanche and What to Do With It But what does it really mean? Data Privacy Day, which is now celebrated for the entire week, aims to spread awareness about online privacy and what it entails while educating people on how to manage their personal information while keeping it secure. “Tides are shifting, conversations are shifting, people are starting to become more aware of their data privacy,” said Astrid Rivera, senior marketing manager of social and editorial content at Mozilla Firefox. “I would say today is extremely significant, for Firefox, but especially for the advertising and branding world.” In the last decade, several companies have fallen short of transparent data practices and indulged in data breaches. While financial damages are an immediate repercussion in such cases, companies face an even heavier blow when their reputation and consumer trust are at stake. And it's no secret the consumer attitude to privacy has experienced a sea-change, spurred by regulators and tech platforms introducing privacy-centric features. At Mozilla Firefox, privacy and security are among the company’s core tenants. Back in 2015, the company implemented tracking protection on the browser, which is now a default setting, along with constantly improving privacy features that protect the users against cookies and other online tracking mechanism. As of today, via Twitter Polls and quizzes, Mozilla drives the engagement with its users on data privacy and its importance, but plans to extend the conversation into February to create a whole month of data privacy-focused content and really harness this topic. "We're very excited about that,” signed off Rivera. Other tech companies use Data Privacy Day to show how they are responsible custodians of personal data, whether you believe them or not. Last year, Apple shared a report, “A Day in the Life of Your Data,” which explains how social media companies, data brokers and advertisers can track a user’s data across websites and apps. The report also shares how privacy features across Apple’s products give its users more transparency control and educate them on how to protect their personal information. Earlier this month, Facebook introduced its "Privacy Center," which aims to educate people on how it collects and uses data. It outlines five aspects of privacy: sharing, security, data collection, data use and ads. To commemorate Data Privacy Day, Google furthered its 2019 initiative of the open-source differential privacy—a system designed to publicly share information about a dataset by describing the patterns of groups within the dataset while withholding information about individuals for the same. Earlier this week, Google also shared how to stay safe online while leveraging tools accessible to them to control their ad experience. To make it a seamless experience for its users, Google built easy-to-use controls in the Ad Settings that help users review and update their information to tailor their ad experience. Again, more power to users. Further, in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group, Google also released a study this week about how marketers are prioritizing privacy-first marketing this year.