Data Protection, Privacy, and Cyber Security: A Review of Regulations

CORPORATE CRIME
[Document subtitle]
[DATE]
[COMPANY NAME]
[Company address]

With the increased globalisation there has enhanced complexities in the business
environment, together with the increased dependence on the information technology and
other related techniques. With the enhanced dependence on the computers and information
technologies, there is enhanced exposure of the businesses of the risks like data breach,
legislation breaches, lack of understanding for the efficient use and others. The following
work is aimed at shedding the light on the various aspects of the data protection, privacy, and
cyber security with the aid of the review of the various regulations.
One of the key cases that surfaced around recently in context of the data privacy and remains
one of the renowned global cases of data privacy breach is that of company Cambridge
Analytica. The company has entered into dysfunctional stage since May 1st, 2018 because of
the unethical operations. The company was engaged in the purchase of the Facebook data of
millions of Americans without their consent and knowledge with the objective of building a
“psychological warfare tool1.” The usage of the said tool was further in the support of Donald
Trump as president in the national elections. The above incident highlight that the economic
life of the residents of a region can be impacted by the privacy intrusions like above. The
hackers can sell the confidential data such as social security number, credit card number,
bank account number, phone numbers and other such incidental data. As a result, citizen may
suffer huge monetary loss, or like in Cambridge Analytica case, may choose to elect different
leader.
The key features of European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) are
stated as follows. The stated legislation is the chief law aimed at regulating the protection of
the EU citizens' personal data by the companies. The objective of the legislation is to
implement a uniform data security law that would be applicable on the EU members, to avoid
the inconsistency in the data protection laws across the entire European Union2. Some of the
key compliances as prescribed in the legislation include the following.
 Requirement of the consent of subjects for the processing of the data.
 Anonymous collection of data with the aim of the protection of privacy.
 Provision of the data breach notifications.
 Safe handling of the data transfer across the borders.
 Requirement of certain companies of the appointment of a data protection officer.
1 "The Cambridge Analytica Files: The Story So Far", Davelevy.Info (Webpage, 2019)
<http://davelevy.info/Downloads/cabridgeananalyticafiles%20-theguardian_20180318.pdf>.
2 "EUGDPR – Information Portal", Eugdpr.Org (Webpage, 2019) <https://eugdpr.org/>.