Data Privacy Day Special

27 countries across Europe as well as the United States and Canada will be celebrating Data Privacy Day today. This date aims to highlight attention about the current and future security, integrity and privacy of individuals' information online as our online knowledge economy grows and develops. As one could imagine, it has drawn interest from a myriad of interested communities: from privacy professionals, organisations, government officials and representatives to academics, students and bloggers.

The event could not be better timed; comScore research that broke in December 2008 reports how the number of people globally using the Internet just broke the 1bn mark; 27% of those users were from Europe. As data on individuals and organisations grows, so does the responsibility of large corporations that collate this data to be open and honest about how they are using it.

Despite the fact that this issue is gaining traction amongst stakeholders in Europe, there are still many people that are not aware of the way in which data privacy affects them. In the United Kingdom, the information that young people leave on social networks is being used in the bid to fight violent crimes, placing an onus upon the likes of Facebook and Bebo to ensure they are also protecting the civil liberties of those that use that service. Online advertising generates the flow of revenues that support the growth of the digital economy: getting the balance right between giving the right information to those that seek it, and hoarding personal details with the intention of sending targeted advertising is a crucial matter - especially where dominant players online risk gaining a monopoly on the use of that data.

Organisations around Europe are undertaking initiatives that aim to bring the subject and its implications to the front of peoples' minds, some of them may be also of interest to people that you know. Therefore, feel free to share this information, so that others may protect theirs. Awareness initiatives in Europe

• A conference in the European Parliament bringing together privacy advocates, Members of the European Parliament, data protection authorities, teachers, students and the ICT industry to discuss shared responsibilities in protecting privacy of citizens. The event will feature the winning videos of a competition for young adults run by European Schoolnet with the support of Microsoft and will include a presentation of a study, an intervention by the Council of Europe, and a keynote speech by Vice President Barrot. To register, please reply to event@dataprotectionday.eu


• The council of Europe will also be promoting the event with the help of various interest groups. To get involved, contact them via their website and search for 'data privacy day'.


• Intel is hosting a data privacy group on Facebook - join the conversation online.

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ICOMP is an industry initiative for organisations and policy makers involved in the online marketplace, which aims to draw up and build widespread support for principles that underpin a transparent and competitive internet.

Microsoft is ICOMP's initial sponsor. Burson-Marsteller acts as its Secretariat.

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