security concept - Lock on digital screen with world mapMathias Rosenthal
Can digital data truly be secure?This question was the main focus Wednesday during the second annual Cybersecurity Law Institute held at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. The two-day conference (May 21 and 22) kicked off with a keynote address from Nuala O’Connor, CEO of the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology.
“What is the curtilage of the self online?” asked O’Connor, speaking broadly of the data footprint left by everyday Internet users. “Where is the space that is mine, that is private, that I control?” Data is no longer a property right, she said, noting that the concept of owning your own territory online that no one can access is a “thing of the past.” If the line drawn in the sand pertaining to protecting personal data from the eyes of companies and the government is blurred, individuals will never express themselves freely online, she said.
Honing in on businesses, O’Connor polled both in-house and outside counsel in the audience to see how many attendees at the nearly packed Hart Auditorium knew their organization's chief information officer, chief risk officer and chief privacy officer. “Who is responsible for the system?” O’Connor inquired.
Citing the Target Corp. data breach of last year, she observed that customer trust was seriously wounded by the incident. But there are lessons to be learned from the mishap.
For companies such as Amazon.com Inc., where O’Connor previously worked as vice president of compliance and consumer trust, and as associate general counsel for data and privacy protection, consumer data is like “gold at Fort Knox,” she said. Data is one of Amazon’s primary assets; compromising that data would deal a serious blow to the company’s reputation and the trust of its customers. “When trust erodes, it is very hard to get back,” said O’Connor.
Factors such as angry ex-employees, rogue inside employees, accidental disclosures, poor security measures and various other factors can potentially jeopardize the precise commodity of data for companies, she noted.
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