Episode 42 - Encryption: When Data Privacy Best Practices Are Not

Show Notes

Encryption is often thought of as the basic and best cybersecurity approach to protecting data in transit or in flight. As guest Ken Morris, CEO and founder of KnectIQ, argues, it’s not. Encrypting data is an essential practice, but it’s really not the problem or the solution. Instead, any organization must consider its keys. Best practices in cybersecurity in 2019 require new technologies that address the role of and threats to keys. Once a hacker gets access to a key, the data are there to be taken, even without the data controller or processor knowing that the thief has entered the storeroom. As the day of quantum computing approaches, it will become ever more certain that encryption alone is inadequate to protect data in flight. This is becoming known to the authorities. And that is not an idle thought. Article 32 of the EU’s Global Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, forces possessors of personal data to consider the “state of the art” in deploying systems to protect personal data. And the increased sophistication of corporate espionage demands new thinking on how to prevent data break-ins. This podcast is a primer on how to think differently about cybersecurity and how the best practices of yesterday are no longer those of today. If you have ideas for more interviews or stories, please email [e-mail].

What is Data Privacy Detective?

The internet in its blooming evolution makes personal data big business – for government, the private sector and denizens of the dark alike. The Data Privacy Detective explores how governments balance the interests of personal privacy with competing needs for public security, public health and other communal goods. It scans the globe for champions, villains, protectors and invaders of personal privacy and for the tools and technology used by individuals, business and government in the great competition between personal privacy and societal good order.

We’ll discuss how to guard our privacy by safeguarding the personal data we want to protect. We’ll aim to limit the access others can gain to your sensitive personal data while enjoying the convenience and power of smartphones, Facebook, Google, EBay, PayPal and thousands of devices and sites. We’ll explore how sinister forces seek to penetrate defenses to access data you don’t want them to have. We’ll discover how companies providing us services and devices collect, use and try to exploit or safeguard our personal data.

And we’ll keep up to date on how governments regulate personal data, including how they themselves create, use and disclose it in an effort to advance public goals in ways that vary dramatically from country to country. For the public good and personal privacy can be at odds. On one hand, governments try to deter terrorist incidents, theft, fraud and other criminal activity by accessing personal data, by collecting and analyzing health data to prevent and control disease and in other ways most people readily accept. On the other hand, many governments view personal privacy as a fundamental human right, with government as guardian of each citizen’s right to privacy. How authorities regulate data privacy is an ongoing balance of public and individual interests. We’ll report statutes, regulations, international agreements and court decisions that determine the balance in favor of one or more of the competing interests. And we’ll explore innovative efforts to transcend government control through blockchain and other technology.

If you have ideas for interviews or stories, please email [e-mail].