European Data Protection Day
On 28 January 1981, the Council of Europe signed the Data Protection Convention, also known as ‘Convention 108’, considered to be the first binding international instrument in this field, which is why this day is known as Privacy Day.
Its celebration began in 2007 and, although it was known as a European date, it has now transcended to international status being known as Information Privacy Day or Data Privacy Day.
The importance of this matter can even be seen in Article 18.4 of the Spanish Constitution, which states that ‘the law shall limit the use of information technology to guarantee the honour and personal and family privacy of citizens and the full exercise of their rights’.
But do we know what the concept of data protection consists of?
What is data protection?
Personal data protection is understood as the set of measures, whether legal, IT or of any other nature, which are aimed at guaranteeing the rights of individuals to control their information, as well as its availability, integrity and confidentiality. In other words, the individual can decide on the use of their information and, when their data is processed by third parties, they can be sure that their data will be used legitimately and correctly, applying the necessary guarantees.
Relevance of data protection
We can imagine that, in the current context and with the digital revolution, the evolution of new technologies or artificial intelligence, among other matters, the importance of this issue is even greater.
Apart from purely legislative aspects linked to data protection compliance, we can find different reasons to understand the magnitude of the relevance of protecting people’s data.
One of the most relevant is a question of security, since avoiding leaks of personal data (name and surname, address or ID number, among others), associated with financial information or passwords for access to different online services can help to prevent inappropriate and/or fraudulent use leading to identity theft or other potential crimes. In addition to offering guarantees and autonomy to the individual to know and dispose of their information.
From the point of view of administrations or companies, the fact of implementing data protection measures has positive consequences such as a greater degree of trust from users, as well as an increase in corporate image and reputation standards and even, as a consequence of this, an increase in competitiveness in the market.
Telefónica and data protection
Telefónica has a Global Transparency Centre through which the company reports, among other matters, on its responsibility for data protection.
For Telefónica, it is essential to respect people’s privacy by offering guarantees, generating an environment of trust in third parties focused on people and on the development of new digital products and services in which privacy guarantees are applied from the design stage.
Telefónica’s privacy pillars are based on:
- Transparency so that users know what the data collected is used for and why it is used, with the premise that it will not be used for different or abusive purposes, which is why only the strictly necessary information is requested. This task is recognised by the main market analysts in this area, as Telefónica occupies the top positions in several of the indexes evaluated on these issues.
- Control and choice with different tools, means and ways for users to decide how they wish their data to be processed, as well as the ability to update personal information.
- Security through the most demanding and robust measures which seek to guarantee the integrity, availability and confidentiality of all data, both for the Telefónica Group and the employees who interact with it.
These foundations help to create an environment with a higher degree of security, reliability and transparency for people.
