New security awareness module on privacy

Privacy is both a narrow, intensely personal issue relating to the individual, and a broad democratic principle relating to society at large. It’s one of those things in life that perhaps we don’t truly appreciate until it’s gone – ask anyone who has suffered intrusive media coverage for instance, lost their identity to an identity thief, or had their medical, personnel or credit card data records “lost presumed stolen”.

A lay person might define personal information as “Details about someone that they would consider private.” That definition may make perfect sense to you and me but is probably too subjective for the courts. Personal information is defined more narrowly in the legislation, but annoyingly the definitions vary between countries.