The leak of personal data reaches record numbers

With the development of the internet and new technologies, the loss of control of personal data has not stopped growing. According to recent studies, 40 billion records of personal data have been exposed in 2021, the highest figure ever recorded, and it is estimated that personal data leaks have affected millions of Catalans. Configuration errors, vulnerabilities in API (application programming interface) and scraping (extraction of information) in social networks are the main causes. The Catalan Data Protection Authority (APDCAT), aware of this problem, works to empower people in the face of existing risks in the current context, so that they can make informed decisions regarding their data and be proactive in defending their data. rights.

 

Now, coinciding with World Education Action Week, APDCAT has put together a collection of ten new informative capsules to explain, in a fun and educational way, the basics of data protection. The action is part of the APDCAT Strategic Plan 2020-2022, which includes dissemination and awareness actions on data protection.

 

The APDCAT warns that many "free" services and applications are fed by personal data as a financial consideration, because they are offered to third parties for commercial purposes. Therefore, he insists that "you need to be very careful when setting the privacy options of the applications or services that are accessed, as well as the permissions to access personal information of downloaded applications".

 

 

For APDCAT, in order to make people aware of the importance of maintaining a proactive attitude regarding their privacy and control of their personal data, the starting point is to have clear and simple information on what the right includes. in data protection, which subjects are involved, what are the main risks and what tools are available to defend these rights in the face of the new challenges posed by emerging technologies.

 

This is a subject with a high technical content and a specialized language that can be incomprehensible to the public. For this reason, APDCAT has used the animated video format to bring these concepts closer in a more playful and easy way, for both adults and young people and children.

 

Specifically, the capsules address the following contents:

 

· What is personal data?

 

· What is biometric data?

 

· What is a personal data processing?

 

· Data protection rights

 

· The principles that govern data protection

 

· What are the profiles developed from automated data processing?

 

· Who is the controller?

 

· Who is the processor?

 

· Who is the data protection officer?

 

· What is data protection by design and by default?

 

The videos are available on the apdcat.cat website, and have also been made available to the Department of Education so that it can be disseminated through the Educational Telematics Network of Catalonia (XTEC).