The volume of data circulating the Internet is astronomical, and amongst these data are troves of personal information gathered from HTML forms, emails, Google searches and so on. In many cases, the information is relatively ordinary and harmless (e.g. a name or address), but other forms of personal information can be considered ‘sensitive data’. This includes things like ethnic origin, political opinions, medical conditions, financial data and more. In order to protect such data, several countries have enacted ‘Data Protection Acts’ to guard against information loss, misuse and/or theft.

Consider for a moment the country within which you reside. What sorts of data protection acts or laws exist there? How effective do you think they are at protecting sensitive information? For this Discussion, research one of these acts along with a type of organisation where data protection is important (e.g. banking, health care, education, etc.). Analyse at least 3-4 potential violations of your selected act within your selected organisation type and recommend countermeasures to mitigate its likeliness to occur.

To complete this Discussion:

Post: Create an initial post in which you analyse an act within your country with the purpose of protecting data. Focus on how your selected act protects data. Analyse a type of organisation of your choosing (e.g. banking, health, etc.) and identify at least 3-4 violations of data protection that could occur (e.g. disclosure of patient data, disclosure of employee information, etc.) and how the violations might occur. Based on your analyses, evaluate the likelihood of at least one of your noted violations occurring and recommend countermeasures to reduce that likelihood. Explain why you selected that violation to discuss.