Question

Compare and contrast the respective roles and responsibilities of the Australian government, businesses and individuals in maintaining data privacy

Answer 1

In this age of technology, where data is everywhere, it has become a necessity to protect and maintain data privacy. All attacks, etc can never be prevented if they are been done, but certain measures and precautions can always be taken. In this information age, the government, businesses and individuals, all three have their own roles and responsibilities towards maintaining data privacy.

The government should educate the common public towards good data practices and how to secure their private data.  It should have proper measures in place to protect its own digital infrastructure. The government should also ensure that companies disclose all and any potential privacy threats or security threats may be possible by adhering to their stated policies or agreeing to their services. There should not be over-regulation of cyberlaw as this will kill any creative innovations possible, but also ignoring the problem is irresponsible and some sort of regulation should be done by the government.

The businesses/industries also have a role to play. The should create transparency in their any and all policies if possible. The features developed in their products should be simple and easy to understand so the general people know what they are getting into. It should allow for options to opt out of certain features like profiling or cookie tracking that can be a threat to privacy and can cause users to feel uncomfortable. They should let every of their user know the possible threats to their data if they use the product and the different types of data that would be tracked or stored by the business.

The general public has the biggest role in protecting their own data. While the big attacks by hackers on everyone cannot be prevented, but there are certain steps that can be taken to protect ourselves. We should always be careful about what type of information we are sharing on the internet. Any and all passwords should be complex, not easy enough to be cracked. Also, the same password should not be used for many accounts because if one of the accounts are breached, all of them are as good as compromised. Using VPNs if doing any confidential and data security work would help a long way in hiding your data.

Finally, to conclude, I had say that data privacy is a shared responsibility. No one entity, government, business or individual, can be held completely responsible for it. Everyone should adhere to their roles and responsibilities to protect private data and uphold privacy.

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